Asclepius Revisited
by StillWaters1
Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.
1. The Man Trap

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

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Series Notes: I know there are probably several wonderful writers out there who have done a series where they touch on every episode of TOS and I am in awe of that level of work and dedication. A few months ago, I got the idea of doing something similar, but focused on one character…and thus this project was born. As anyone who has followed my work surely knows by now, McCoy is my favorite – both his character alone and the devoted friendship between him, Kirk, and Spock. McCoy appears in 76 episodes of TOS. This series will consist of 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, missing scenes, and/or expanded moments – one for each episode. Chapter lengths will vary (although it seems that every time I aim for a drabble, I end up with several pages of text!) and it will be updated as time allows, as I am watching each episode in full and taking detailed, verbatim notes before writing. I'm not sure if this is ambition or insanity, but I'm looking forward to the challenge and exploration :)

Notes on Chapter 1: This piece picks up right at the end of "The Man Trap." I always felt McCoy's character was a little off in this episode – granted, it was early in the series and everyone was feeling out their characters, but there were moments where he seemed to rally and really focus beyond his attraction to Nancy, and I felt like he really _did_ know something was wrong and, in hindsight, would be kicking himself for not acknowledging and acting on it sooner. DeForest Kelley's "Lord forgive me" just before shooting the creature always struck me, and so it became the basis for this reflection, _his_ reflection, on the events that took place. Anything in single quotations or italicized with regular quotes is taken verbatim from the episode. The red sleeping pills are never named in the episode, so I've given them a name here (zolmedin) and placed them in the "sedative-hypnotic" class (same as Ambien in present day medicine). As usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world!

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**1.**

_Lord forgive me._

McCoy collapsed. Slumping forward, he buried his face in his hands, unaware of the sharp sting of elbows hitting the desk. The three words beat against closed eyelids, squeezed each beat of his heart into a mournful, dysrhythmic cry, saturated the close air of the office.

The office where he strove to preserve life….. where he had been forced to retreat while death, death by _his hand_, was erased from his quarters.

The one place where, at that moment, he felt he had the _least_ right to be.

"_I thought it was, sir. Another error on my part."_

"_I'm not counting them Bones."_

"Well, _you_ might not be countin' them Jim, but _I_ sure am," McCoy sighed heavily to the accusing silence.

There had been far too many.

Sure, he had recognized that Darnell couldn't have died from alkaloid poisoning, even told Jim 'not to tell him his business'…before promptly forgetting just that.

His business.

A first year intern could have told Jim that it wasn't alkaloid poisoning, would have immediately noted that the plant material had been placed in Darnell's mouth post-mortem. They knew better than to rely blindly on outside history. _ He_ knew better.

Hell, compared to today, as a first year intern, he had _been_ better.

But not today. No, today he not only allowed himself to become so distracted that he didn't even _notice_ that the Borgia plant in Darnell's mouth was completely intact, but to the point where he _also_ forgot to order one of the most basic post-mortem tests available. Since when did he conduct an autopsy without checking a full electrolyte panel? That skin pattern was so similar to the marks of the potassium-injecting leeches of Mephya, that an electrolyte panel should have been his first thought. Instead, he was so focused on Nancy….on everything that was _wrong_ with Nancy…..that he couldn't even admit to himself that it _was_ wrong.

From the moment he saw a different woman upon discovering Darnell's body, he _knew_ something wasn't right. Sure, he may have been 'looking at her through a romantic haze', seeing what he wanted to see, but that wouldn't make his gut churn, his chest flutter at the edge of nausea. No, that only happened when things were about to go bad.

And oh, did they go bad.

Because when Nancy showed up outside his quarters, he ushered her right in. He_ knew_ it was odd that Jim hadn't told him that she was on board, even said so to Nancy herself, but he still took her in without a word to the Bridge. When Nancy began talking about the strength of his feelings and memories and how she preferred him…..well, he was uncomfortable, sure. He _would_ not, no matter _how_ much he may have cared for Nancy both in the past and the present, violate the sanctity of her marriage. But more than that, he was uncomfortable because what she was saying, how she was saying it, was _wrong_. The syntax, the diction, almost as if she were speaking a second language…..the seductive tone, a cruel mockery of the sweet choir voice he had fallen in love with so many years before, the manipulative pleas…. 'if you love me'...that his psychiatric training should have latched onto immediately….. People changed, sure, but this was just…._wrong_. And when she encouraged him to take that pill, to 'just sleep'…

He took a sleeping pill.

During a ship-wide crisis.

Because Nancy told him to.

Not because _Jim_, one of his best friends, told him to…..Jim had suggested it, but McCoy had already dismissed the idea, on his way to the Bridge just as Nancy appeared at his door.

_Nancy_ told him to take it.

And he _listened_.

He took medical advice from a suspicious-acting woman he had loved twelve years ago.

_Taking_ the advice was wrong enough - what was worse was that he actually _acted_ on it. There was a reason he hadn't taken the medication when Jim brought it up. He was a doctor, dammit – he knew _exactly_ how a sedative-hypnotic like zolmedin worked, _exactly_ how it would affect him, _exactly_ how difficult to impossible it would be to wake up quickly if there was a medical call.

But he took that little red pill anyway.

Because _Nancy_ told him to.

The fact that he immediately tried to sit up upon hearing the medical alert was little comfort because, when Nancy lightly pushed him back down and told him to rest, he didn't fight it.

He _didn't fight it._

Maybe he just _couldn't_ fight the medication any longer - he wasn't as young as he used to be.

Maybe he thought that if he just got a little rest, he'd wake up with a clearer understanding of why his gut was churning that one word warning.

Maybe, in hindsight, the hypnotic force that Nancy….the _creature_….used to paralyze its prey had already been in effect.

But in the end, none of it mattered because he, Leonard H. McCoy, had knowingly put himself into a state where he couldn't be reached in a crisis. Whether by the creature's intent or his will alone, it didn't matter. Barnhart died, Spock was attacked, and his hands had been lax in drugged sleep, rather than busy in knowledgeable healing.

The psychiatrist in him knew that he was being hard on himself, that he was only human, that he was bound to have off-days….but that same training also whispered that _his_ off-days could kill. He knew, with the rational, non-hurting part of his brain, that he couldn't have prevented Barnhart's death, that Spock's physiology would have kept the Vulcan alive regardless of McCoy's presence, but still the voice accused:

Y_ou weren't there_.

You weren't there to care for Barnhart's body in death, you weren't there to treat and tease Spock's in life.

Because you took the red pill.

_Lord, forgive me._

McCoy scrubbed at his face desperately as that little voice rose to a screaming crescendo, suffocating him with self-castigation. A tiny part of the emotional, irrational storm in his head latched onto that red pill, tied it to Nancy, to all the hurt…..and started to blame the pharmacology even in the face of his own blatant ignorance of it. He had never liked zolmedin and its severe side effect profile, but he tolerated it as a last-option drug because, for some people, it worked. Some, like Jim, got the benefits without the lingering sluggishness, hallucinations, and other dangerous effects. In his despair, his anger, his sheer raging doubt…..McCoy suddenly found himself starting to hate that drug. He struggled through the flood, forcing himself to take a breath. He was a _doctor_ – a _professional_, trained and experienced in properly weighing risk-benefit ratios with pharmacological knowledge. He wouldn't throw away a medication simply because he had a bad experience with a patient, even if that patient was himself.

But several hours later, he found himself performing an unnecessary inventory of the sedative-hypnotic drugs…..and saw Christine glance away as she pretended not to notice the subtle shift of the small, red zolmedin to the back of the shelf.

And that night, when McCoy, unable to bear the echo of death haunting his quarters, passed the long hours in his office, immersed in a waking nightmare of rumination that shot his haunted blue eyes with a mockery of zolmedin red…. he pretended the sleepless night wasn't his penance.

And the next night, when Kirk came down to sickbay seeking relief from an elusive rest haunted by the suffocating memory of helplessness and impending death, he already anticipated his prescription. As McCoy moved to the medication cabinet with a weary silence, Kirk held out his hand for the red pill.

And got a green one.

….And desperately tried to pretend he didn't see the unspoken reason in McCoy's struggling eyes.

_Lord forgive me._


	2. Charlie X

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: McCoy is in four scenes of "Charlie X." What really ended up catching my attention was the way he supported Yeoman Rand in the final scene when she is returned to the Enterprise – it's so subtle, you almost don't see it. That led me to thinking of McCoy as a father, and how that would relate to his discussions with Kirk regarding father figures for Charlie (both in the earlier scene on the Bridge and the later one in the briefing room). As I started to write, it all came together as something of a reflection from McCoy regarding fatherhood, father figures, and how he saw not only the events, but also Kirk and Spock, in this episode. Italicized quotations or anything in double quotes is taken from episode dialogue. As usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world!

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**2.**_**  
**_

"_We're in the hands of an adolescent."_

Even through the suffocating sense of foreboding in the wake of Charlie's exit, McCoy's eyebrow quirked as he noted the faint hint of horror in Spock's tone…..

….Horror that infused the word 'adolescent.'

Horror that was not _nearly_ so pronounced during Spock's earlier discussion of Charlie's powers.

Horror that now had McCoy seriously wondering about Spock's _own_ adolescence.

Of course Spock was knowledgeable about human development – he could probably recite the hormonal changes as readily as McCoy himself - but one didn't get that vaguely haunted, 'dear Lord, not again' tone from record tape knowledge alone. No, one had to _live_ through it, whether by personal experience alone, or for a second time through raising a child.

Spock didn't _have_ any children, so that meant…

McCoy suddenly found himself considering Spock's adolescent years in a whole new light. Chemically, it must have been _hell_ for Spock. As a physician, he empathized with the uncertain process of an already unstable event complicated by the collision of interspecies genetics. As a _parent_…..well, he was trying to imagine a frustrated, but 'won't _admit_ I'm frustrated' Sarek touting logic and limits.

Poor Amanda.

McCoy sighed as he brought himself back to the present and Kirk's hard, yet resigned expression. They all knew where this was going…..and part of him hated to be the one to illustrate how it was all going to fall to Kirk, but he couldn't change it, no matter how much as he wanted to.

"_Well, for the moment he's stopped. You're an authority he respects Jim."_

Kirk knew as soon as the words were spoken. His eyes shadowed briefly before hardening with resolve. His jaw set.

Spock knew it too, voiced it in one syllable. _"Agreed."_

When Kirk, acting like an embarrassed adolescent himself, came to McCoy on the Bridge earlier asking him to oversee Charlie's developmental education, McCoy had only been half-joking when he had tried to get out of it by suggesting that it come from a strong father figure. Just because he was a physician and understood the details of the physical and emotional changes that took place in adolescence didn't mean he wanted to have that conversation again – _no one_ wanted to have that conversation. It was an oddly unstudied yet universal truth that people, like Kirk in that moment, became jabbering, blushing fools when confronted with the topic of sexual development. Sure, he had the experience of having given that talk to his _own_ child, but that didn't mean he wanted to do it _again_. Besides, Jo was his daughter and the talk was different with girls. He couldn't promise that he wouldn't slip out of 'friendly, objective physician' and revert back to 'protective father', where the only line of that talk to an adolescent male would have been 'stay away from my little girl unless you're damn well _sure_ you won't break her heart.' But he wasn't just trying to pass the discomfort to Kirk when he told him, "he already looks up to you" – because Charlie _did _already look up to Kirk. It was done.

Sure, he could have sat Charlie down and talked until he was blue in the face, but it wouldn't have made a difference, because Charlie _didn't_ look up to him that way. What Kirk didn't understand was that that kind of connection was an important foundation, the basis of _any_ of those sensitive conversations….and it couldn't be dictated. It fell where it would. McCoy had been completely serious in his reinforcement that Charlie needed a guide and a father had, as always, depended on McCoy to make it happen, to make it right….but you couldn't "supply or find" a father figure – people latched onto someone and created that connection themselves…..and Charlie had already done so. With Jim.

And so, in the briefing room, after Charlie admitted to destroying the Antares, McCoy had said it again….and Spock agreed. Now, he and Spock didn't argue like cats and dogs _nearly_ as much as the Bridge crew might insist. While he sure wasn't inclined to agree with the pointy-eared computer on a _lot_ of things, there was one matter in which they were in _consistent_ agreement – they both knew and cared about Jim Kirk more than they did themselves. With that single word – _"agreed"_ - Spock's voice showed that he shared McCoy's correct assessment, while the all-too-human eyes showed that he, like McCoy, _knew_ that it would break Jim's heart, that he wished there were some other way…even while knowing one didn't exist. He couldn't make it better for his friend, only be there at the end to help pick up the pieces.

So, together with Spock, McCoy watched Kirk live out the most difficult parts of being a father figure….of being a _father: _of knowing that the young man who looked up to him was dangerous…..of having to bring that young man pain to save his 'other children' on the Enterprise…..of listening to Charlie plead, bargain, shout, and desperately appeal to those baser empathetic instincts as the Thasians returned for him…..

The Thasian told them what they already knew. Charlie would never be able to harness his power – he would continue to use it, would take more lives before someone was forced to try and take _his_. And Kirk, bless him, even while already _knowing_ what he had to do, still stood up at Charlie's pained "help me" - both desperate for a chance to make it work for the boy, to allow him to stay with humanity, yet already aware of the choice he had to make in the end. And as he pleaded for one child, another was returned: Janice Rand appeared on the Bridge, a flash of embarrassment before the confusion of shock. Kirk assured her everything was all right, sparing a moment for one frightened child before returning his attention to another.

The Thasian gave the best answer he could, father-to-father. _"We offer him life and we will take care of him." _The Enterprise couldn't take care of Charlie, and McCoy knew that. _Kirk_ knew that. If the Thasians could…..well, it was what Charlie needed….and sometimes a father had to put his child's _need_ over his child's_ want_.

And so Charlie disappeared, the father figure he didn't want to admit that he _needed_ plucking him from the father figure that he may have _wanted_. The Bridge was silent, Spock a ready presence at Kirk's back as he sank into his chair, eyes haunted by a decision no less painful for having known that it was the right one.

With one child gone, another shifted against McCoy. When Janice was returned to the Bridge, McCoy did what any father would do, whether for his own child or that of a friend – he pulled her to safety, gently held her back from further heartbreak as Charlie pleaded against her feelings, and absorbed her weight as the storm of emotion reached that desperate moment before release and she sagged against him.

But when that emotion finally came, when the tears started to spill over, Janice leaned forward toward her _true_ father figure.

Toward his friend.

And so he gently propelled her toward Kirk.

And let go.


	3. The Naked Time

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "The Naked Time" is full of McCoy being awesome, as well as being rife with potential sequelae. The first thing that caught my attention was the uncomprehending, pleading tone McCoy used when his surgical patient was dying, and particularly, the way his accent flared after the death, when he said the wounds weren't that severe. I could see McCoy running the whole scenario through his head over and over, trying to figure out what went wrong once he had time to think after the cure was discovered and administered. I noticed how Sulu reacted to the cure by forgetting what had happened, but saw Kirk get the same hypo and still remember…..and I knew there was no way anyone would just forget what they had done under the influence of that molecule, and that it was certainly going to haunt them. So, this became a post-episode reflection and continuation – McCoy trying to figure out how the whole thing started, while simultaneously acting as therapist for a shattered crew, and trying to get past his own disbelief and self-doubt at the crewman's death. Dr. Helen Noel is the psychiatrist from the episode "Dagger of the Mind" and the only Enterprise psychiatrist I could find in my research. "The Naked Time" never stated what the causative agent was – it just called it a "complex chain of molecules" and explained how it acted, so I was uncomfortable calling it a virus. I either refer to it as "the molecule" or "the infective agent" or just "agent." I know that in the episode, the crewman is first infected when a red substance trickles onto his hand – it was hard to tell if it was blood, since the character nearby didn't show any wounds – so I took the liberty of sort of ignoring that and focusing on the surrounding ice instead. Hey, I was _trying_ to make it make_ some_ sense :) Italicized quotations are taken from episode dialogue. As usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world!

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**3. **

"_Bones, I want the __im__possible checked out too."_

In the wake of the latest medical crisis to challenge McCoy's stubborn belief that he _had_ indeed been in full possession of his faculties when he pursued a Starfleet commission, Kirk's words pushed back into his thoughts.

McCoy leaned back from the computer screen, rubbing wearily at blurred eyes. There was an old saying in Earth medicine: "if you hear hoof beats, look for horses, not zebras." Well, Jim had wanted the impossible checked out, and so he had done just that. He chased zebras.

And found one.

Infective agents passed through perspiration were zebras in and of themselves – even in modern interspecies and interplanetary medicine, that kind of transmission was rare. But changes in water molecules? Water molecules becoming a complex chain that mimicked the inhibitory effects of alcohol?

"I sweah, I couldn't make this stuff up," McCoy half-drawled, half-muttered to the incomplete report on the screen. He could almost _feel_ the machine mocking him and his seemingly fictional account.

He scrubbed his hands across his face. Writing the presenting symptoms, assessments, tests, and treatments….. that was the easy part. The hard part came now – in the tense lull between the initial fury of the quake and the full, post-adrenaline damage assessment later. Where McCoy put on his epidemiological hat and began trying to trace the crisis back, to find that tectonic shift, all while keeping one ear open for the whisper of sickbay doors indicating the arrival of the first aftershock.

Joe Tormolen brought the infective agent from Psi 2000 to the Enterprise – that much he knew for sure. What he still couldn't understand was how Tormolen had been infected to begin with. The science team had been dead – frozen. Dead, frozen human beings don't perspire…and he knew, from the transmission pattern aboard the Enterprise, that the agent couldn't infect through lingering perspiration, such as that left by a handprint on a console – it had to be fresh, direct contact with the source….therefore it couldn't have been even the _faintest_ remnant of perspiration on the deceased members of the science party. The dead, frozen science party…..in an environment filled with frozen _water_. It _must_ have been transmitted through the ice. Which just served to bring McCoy back to his main concern: Tormolen and Spock had been wearing full protective gear – even this mutated form of water couldn't penetrate the suit – that had been one of the first things McCoy had tested. It _had_ to have been direct contact.

Which meant that Tormolen had broken safety protocol. He took off a glove and touched the ice.

And, impossibly, had been the only casualty in the entire, wildfire spread of the unpredictable agent.

An ultimate stupidity, no doubt. Yet, at the same time, almost an ultimate penance.

Is_ that_ what it was? They hadn't known that they were in the early stages of an epidemic at that point, but did Joe somehow _know_? Did a man with treatable injuries, who received prompt surgical intervention, simply give up in payment for a perceived sin, rather than the misplaced sense of survivor's guilt that he had vocalized?

Or was McCoy just reaching? Desperate for an answer to the echo of his own disbelief – _"Why is this man dying?"_

"_I got to him in plenty of time. That man should still be alive."_

McCoy sighed heavily, berating himself for permitting his own doubts to take hold again. He turned back to the monitor and wearily dictated the next section heading.

Epidemiology.

How it all began.

How to be factual and concise without tarnishing the memory of a good man.

Seemed damn near impossible from where he was sitting.

McCoy worried his lower lip, twisting his ring as he searched for the words, listening for some fit of inspiration that would allow him to both do his job and prevent further outbreaks while simultaneously holding up the good name of Joe Tormolen for his wife and children.

Silence.

Until…there.

The whisper of sickbay doors.

McCoy looked up into the overflowing eyes of Christine Chapel, and saw it.

The aftershocks were beginning.

He stood up, wrapped a gentle arm around Christine's shoulders, and guided her to his chair.

The tears spilled over.

And he suddenly remembered, with stunning clarity, that Joe wasn't _nearly_ the only casualty.

McCoy handed Christine one of the old-fashioned handkerchiefs she was always teasing him about, perched on the edge of the desk, then thought better of it and pulled up another chair. He sat knee-to-knee with his head nurse and leaned forward. "Go on, now, tell me," he said softly.

Christine sniffled, swiping desperately at her eyes with the worn cloth. "I'm sorry," she choked out, sweeping one free hand in a wide arc around her disheveled self.

"For what?" McCoy asked, eyebrows raised. "Cryin'? There's nothin' wrong with that and you know it. It's a perfectly_ normal_, healthy response to the kind of day we've had 'round here."

"It's not that…." Christine hiccupped. "I….."

"What is it Chris?" he moved a gentle hand to her knee.

Christine looked up at the touch. "I gave that disease to Mr. Spock," she pushed through the tears. Her voice dropped to a bare whisper. "And I hurt him. I hurt him so much."

McCoy's eyes clouded with confusion. "Chris, you couldn't have known that you were infected…..and we didn't isolate the mode of transmission until the very end. You didn't _know_, so you certainly didn't _mean_ to pass it on to Spock."

"No," Christine shook her head at his misunderstanding. "I told him I loved him," she burst out with a desperate laugh, an edge of self-chastising hysteria sharp along the slowing tears.

McCoy's eyes widened for a split second in shock before closing wearily.

So she remembered.

Damn.

He _knew_ the amnesia was going to be short-lived. McCoy had been encouraged when Sulu came to his senses in sickbay with no recollection of how he had gotten there, and thought that maybe the serum would grant the peace of erasing the memory of that loss of control. So much for that hope. In reality though, as much as he _hated_ to see the pain in Christine's eyes, he knew it was for the best, because even if the infected crewmembers never remembered what had happened, it still _happened_. It was in the unaffected crew's eyes, it strangled the close air of the corridors. And, in the long run, facing the memories head-on in a rush of emotion was better than being haunted by the feeling, just on the edge of every waking moment, that you were missing something. Something terrible. Something everyone else knew but wouldn't tell you. Something that had you missing time – a blank space where memory lurked in the shadowed faces of those around you.

McCoy took a steadying breath. "Go on," he prompted quietly, giving her knee a reassuring squeeze.

Christine gulped a rush of air as she swiped at her eyes again. "I….it's like looking back at myself from outside my body," she bit her lip. "Like I can't understand why I didn't see what I was doing when it was happening." She forced herself forward. "I….I touched him. Took his hands and kissed them, told him that I loved him, both parts of him…..insisted that he had feelings because I see them every time he's in here with you and the Captain…I forced_ emotion_ on him, Leonard. I embarrassed him, threatened his control, and then ended up giving him something that stripped it away completely. How could I _do_ that? How could I _hurt_ him like that? How am I _ever_ going to be able to work with him again?" she pleaded.

McCoy was quiet. "Lord, give me strength," he whispered silently, before taking Christine's hands firmly. "Christine, you are _not_ at fault here. You were drugged, without your knowledge and without your consent." He held up a hand as she went to protest. "And don't you start arguin' science with me, young lady," he said, his accent flaring with emotion. "It doesn't matter what kind of compound it was or how it all started, the end results were the same. You were _not_ at fault because you were _not_ in control. That mutated molecule took control from you, so if _anyone_ should be blamed, it's _that_ blasted thing."

Christine swallowed hard, eyes red as tear tracks stiffened. She considered McCoy's words for a long moment before seeming to accept them, even as she added, "But how can I face him again?" Her cheeks flushed briefly with embarrassment. "How could he trust me again after that – as an officer? As a nurse?"

McCoy dug up a quiet smile. "Spock's not really the type to hold a grudge for somethin' like this. There's someone whose every wakin' hour revolves around maintaining strict control….so he's pretty sensitive to how much it hurts to _lose_ that control. His human half will sympathize with the fear inherent in that loss, while his Vulcan half will study the chemical effects and conclude that, logically, nothing that was done while under the molecule's influence could be constituted as anythin' other than what it was – a forced reaction. If there's one thing I'm sure of with Spock, it's that he_ won't_ let something like that affect his respect for you."

Christine smiled slightly. "I hope you're right," she sighed, with a half-shake of her head as doubt crept back in over the hope.

"'Course I'm right," McCoy huffed good-naturedly. His smile widened as Christine relaxed. "Now, why don't you tell me what's _really_ botherin' you?" he fixed her with a knowing look.

Christine rolled her eyes. Damn perceptive man. Of course, she was _beyond_ embarrassed about what she had said to Spock – both for her and for him, but there was more…..and as she looked up into those open blue eyes, she found herself blurting it right out. "I left a patient!" she nearly shouted, crumpling the handkerchief in one angry fist.

McCoy's eyebrow shot up. "I never saw you…." He began.

"After you left for the biopsy lab. You told me to continue monitoring Sulu and I started to…..but then I put down the scanner and just _walked off_….in some sort of_ romantic haze," _Christine spat the last two words. "I left a patient coming out of sedation! What if he had cardiopulmonary changes? What if he vomited and aspirated?" She slammed her clenched fist on the edge of the chair cushion. "Telling Spock I love him makes me a terrible person," she said, dejected, "but leaving Sulu makes me a terrible nurse, and _that_ I can't deal with!" she ground out.

McCoy forced himself to hold back a smile. Christine was more upset about having neglected her nursing duties than she was about embarrassing herself with Spock. "_That's_ my girl," he thought with a grin. He met Christine's eyes firmly. "The fact that Spock's emotional well-being was your first concern just now proves, pretty conclusively, that you're not a terrible person. And while leaving Sulu was inappropriate and you know that, some part of you, even _through_ the infection, knew that it was important to stay nearby, because you stayed in sickbay. You may not have been monitoring Sulu directly, but you could have gone anywhere, and you didn't. You stayed in sickbay where you would have heard monitor alarms or patient distress…and _that_, in my book, proves that you're nowhere _near_ a terrible nurse. But the _real_ moral of this story, and I'm gonna say it as many times as you need to hear it, is that it's _not your fault_. You were_ not_ in control," McCoy finished slowly and clearly.

Christine's face blossomed into her first real smile since the whole mess had begun. "You sure know what to say to a girl," she grinned.

"Flattery'll get you nowhere, my dear," McCoy grinned back. He turned serious again. "You know as well as I do that this won't all go away overnight, so if you find yourself needin' to hear it again, you come find me, you hear? You did a great job during surgery today – I could keep my focus on _my_ job because of how well you do _yours_. You caught that respiratory change early enough for us to at least _try_ an' counter it." McCoy's eyes clouded briefly before he pulled himself back to Christine. "Don't let one bad day, whether it was in your control or not, take away from all the good you do. Got it?"

"Got it," she nodded firmly.

"Good," McCoy nodded with a smile. The sickbay doors whispered, and he looked to Christine. "You ready to do some triaging?" he nodded toward the sound of hesitant footsteps outside the office.

Christine stood up, smoothed out her uniform, and flashed him a familiar, steady smile. "Always," she affirmed. She stepped forward as McCoy stood with her, leaned forward, and lightly kissed his cheek. "Thank you," she said, quiet voice radiating sincerity, before she walked purposefully out the door.

McCoy let out a long sigh. He was already exhausted….. yet he had a feeling his day was about to get even longer.

Five minutes later, Christine's brisk assessment came over the comm. His buzzer chimed and the doors opened to a familiar sight.

Definitely not the only casualty.

Definitely longer.

* * *

Ten hours later, McCoy decided he had his _own_ impossibilities that he wanted checked out – namely, why the Enterprise had such a glaring lack of psychiatric support staff. They had _one_ psychiatrist for four hundred thirty crew – and while Helen Noel was very good, therapeutic relationships just weren't based on qualifications alone. Like any relationship, there were personal factors. Some people wanted a separation between themselves and their psychiatrist – they didn't need or want that 'click', and so they would talk to anyone with the right education. Others needed to feel comfortable on a personal level, and would only talk to a psychiatrist that fulfilled that need. Some of those particular crewmembers felt comfortable with Dr. Noel and sought her out right away – others didn't, and since there weren't any other psychiatrists on board, they came to McCoy. Although he had received psychiatric training and completed several related clinical rotations in medical school, McCoy had never fancied himself a psychiatrist…..yet here he was, having seen more patients in a few hours than a civilian specialist would have seen in a month.

It started with the infected.

Sulu – mortified over his theatric swashbuckling display; terrified at the very real possibility that he could have injured someone with that sword; furious at himself for leaving his post during a critical orbit; second-guessing himself in how he handled Tormolen's threat. "I know he was going to stab himself Doc, I could see it in his eyes….but I still can't stop wondering….did Riley and I do the right thing? Did we just make it worse trying to wrestle the knife from him? Would the wounds have been as bad if he hadn't fallen on the blade? Should I have called for help when he first started acting strangely instead of trying to talk him down myself?" The dark eyes begged for answers McCoy couldn't give.

Riley – horrified at having taken over Engineering and preventing the crew from acting in a critical situation; utterly convinced the Captain would never trust him again. "I could have killed every last one of us," his whisper was harsh, disbelieving. And on the edge of all that suffocating self-blame…..the sudden, crushing weight of grief as he fully comprehended his friend's death. "He's dead. _Joe's dead_," he crumpled.

Crewman Moody – disgusted with himself for harassing Yeoman Rand as _she_, at least, tried to attend to her duty. "I acted like a child – stopped when Mr. Spock was there, then got right back in her face as soon as he was gone."

Crewman Talman – twisting a broken paintbrush in his hands as he berated himself for deserting the lab. "I was laughing like a madman…..and painting graffiti on the walls. _Graffiti_. What does that _say_ about me?"

McCoy had seen neither hide nor hair of Kirk and Spock, but he wasn't really worried. He had seen the look those two shared on the Bridge after the successful implosion – they had seen each other at their worst during the infection, and they would see each other back to their best in the wake of it. McCoy had a pretty good idea of each man's reaction – Spock may have _thought_ he had erased all signs, but McCoy knew when someone had been crying…..and Kirk – well, McCoy hadn't missed the pained, longing look split between the walls of the Bridge and that half-raised hand toward an unsuspecting Yeoman Rand. He knew those two like the back of his hand, inside (unfortunately), and out….and he knew that they would take care of each other and that if they _couldn't_ do that…..if they needed help…..that they would come to him. For the other, of course – not for themselves – but McCoy would take what he could get.

Kirk and Spock's inter-reliance was a good thing at that moment because McCoy was already supporting more crumbling crewmembers weathering seemingly unending aftershocks than he had time for.

It had started with the infected, but it didn't end there. One didn't have to have been _in_fected to have been _a_ffected.

Uhura – drowning in the emotional aftermath of fighting to maintain communications; standing up to her over-stressed Captain's slips of temper; the desperate attempt to disarm Sulu; taking over the navigator's station with only a basic knowledge of how that station worked….all while having a front-row seat to the image of the Enterprise hurtling toward the dying planet. "I know the Captain didn't mean it, but it wasn't like I wasn't _trying_ and I just felt so….."

Scotty – kicking himself for having gotten kicked out of Engineering; feeling like he had failed the Captain when he couldn't live up to his earlier promise (_"we'll be warping out of orbit within a half second of getting your command"); _the fear of electrocution, or worse, of damaging their only chance to get to Riley, when having to cut through the bulkhead without a safety factor; the shock at the state of the engines; the war between his knowledge of the laws of physics and the one desperate chance that he both would normally suggest while simultaneously knowing how _wrong_ it could go. "Aye, my beauties got us out of it, but it was close. By all accounts we should have gone up like a…."

Yeoman Rand – shocked at having been told to take the helm. "I haven't touched helm controls since training exercises at the Academy!"

Lt. Brent – shaking with post-adrenaline nerves recalling his assignment to the helm and the subsequent loss of control and engine power. "Doctor, all I could think about was that planet in front of us…..and how I couldn't do a damn thing to keep us from dying with it."

And so, ten hours later, McCoy was bemoaning the lack of support even while knowing that he couldn't _possibly_ have been anywhere else. He was dead on his feet, the casualty list had grown beyond measure, but the foundation was still intact, each individual piece that came to him supported through the aftershocks. They may have been cracked, but they didn't collapse. That was the Enterprise – go through hell, saddle up, and keep right on going.

A ship of survivors.

McCoy didn't think he had the energy to even_ blink_ at that point, let alone _ruminate_, but as his eyes closed, head dropping wearily into pillowed arms, he saw Joe Tormolen. He saw those indicators go dark, heard himself telling Jim Kirk that he had lost a crewman.

The office doors whispered.

McCoy struggled to pull his head up. "Who's next, Chris?" he asked, voice rough from use.

Christine took in the weary, worn lines of his face, the haunted eyes….and she suddenly saw McCoy back in that moment in surgery, saw the heartbreaking combination of surprise, frustration, incomprehension, and 'sad resignation in the knowledge of what was coming' wash over his face. She heard the plaintive words - _"Why is this man dying?"_ She heard the shocked, harsh finality of her own - _"He's dead Doctor."_ She heard McCoy's accent thicken with emotion as he insisted, _"The wounds were not that severe."_

Christine sat down, mirroring McCoy's position from earlier, knee-to-knee, leaning forward. She handed him the handkerchief with a lightly teasing comment about having had it cleaned. McCoy wrapped the material around one hand as his mind raced, cloudy blue far away.

She met his eyes. "Go on now, tell me," she repeated.

His eyes snapped back into wary focus.

Christine smiled softly. "Your turn."


	4. The Enemy Within

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "The Enemy Within" – there was so much to work with in this episode that it was hard to narrow it down to a single chapter for this series. After four days of reworking the initial draft, scrapping one ending and writing another, I finally decided it was time to let this one go. I hope I found the right balance. I found myself focusing largely on two minor characters in this episode – Geological Technician Fisher and Yeoman Rand. Both of them had exceedingly bad days, and in watching McCoy's limited interaction with both of them, I began to see him continuing his care of those crewmembers in the aftermath of the episode's events. I also began thinking of dichotomies, of being split in two halves, as Kirk lived and Spock very passionately discussed in this episode, and I thought of McCoy's own potential halves, and of his often underrepresented role as a scientist. This piece became McCoy's reflection on such splits, as well as a continuation of his role as a physician once the credits rolled. Dr. Helen Noel is, once again, the psychiatrist from the episode "Dagger of the Mind." Italicized quotations are taken from episode dialogue. As usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world!

* * *

**4. **

"_That's the Captain's guts you're analyzing - are you aware of that Spock?"_

McCoy shook his head, recalling his words with a rueful sigh. "Sure, you hollered at Spock _before_, but look what you're doin' _now_," he chastised himself, waving at the evidence on the computer screen:

"Good vs. Evil: A Genetic Analysis of Theological Nomenclature, by Paul Rogers, PhD."

In the last hour, McCoy had read dozens of similar articles – everything he could find on the debate between good and evil from every _perspective _he could find - theologians, psychologists, neurologists, geneticists, chemists…because, as much as he hated to admit it….._again_…..Spock had been right. What had happened to Jim _was_ "an unusual opportunity to appraise the human mind." McCoy had been furious with Spock for bringing scientific analysis into such an emotionally charged moment for Jim, yet here he was, hours later, in the beginnings of a full literature review on that very same topic.

Spock had explained himself in the end – _"if I seem insensitive to what you're going through Captain, understand – it's the way I am."_

"Well then, I suppose this is the way_ I_ am," McCoy murmured to the screen.

People had a tendency to forget McCoy's scientific training – as if the world of the direct-care physician was completely removed from the research-oriented lab of the PhD. What they didn't realize was that the scientist, the _researcher_, was at the very _core_ of the physician. McCoy had to have very specific knowledge and skills regarding anatomy and physiology, microbiology, virology, medical and surgical treatment… _and_ he had to have an inherent compassion for living beings, a passion for bringing health and comfort…..but at the _heart_ of it all, he had to be a scientist: to feel the thrill of diagnosis – observing, researching, puzzling out the answer in what could end up being a long line of disappointment, but pressing on for the joy of the search. He had to have the interest, the drive, the patience to organize studies and maintain scientific objectivity – and in cases of unknown outbreaks and widespread epidemics, while surrounded by suffering, death, and the rapid passage of time that life couldn't afford….McCoy had to have the ability to control emotion without losing it, to maintain objectivity without losing sight of the ultimate goal and the life involved.

His friends weren't the _only_ ones split in two halves.

Kirk – good and evil coming together to form an unparalleled leader.

Spock – human and Vulcan coming together to form an unparalleled scientist and second-in-command.

And McCoy – compassion and passionate researcher coming together to form an unparalleled healer.

Kirk hadn't known about the warring halves of his self until today, while Spock was at near-constant battle with his. McCoy felt fortunate – he never had to deal with full-out war – just occasional skirmishes.

Like now.

What had happened to Jim today was a nearly incalculable chance event. The issue of the soul, of the nature of good and evil, was one of the things that both modern medicine and modern _thought_, couldn't truly explain. Theologians postulated on creation and creators, psychologists on nature vs. nurture, neurologists on synaptic connections and cell properties, geneticists on a genetic code for the actions of theological terminology, chemists on chemical reactions dictating those same actions…..but no one really _knew_ anything, and certainly, no one had ever seen that dichotomy in such clear display, quite literally separated out into its respective forms. As McCoy reviewed his daily log entry against the current research, he found that he was nearly as excited as Spock had been earlier. The entire situation was, to borrow a phrase, _fascinating_. McCoy hadn't been able to consider it at the time, as he was in the midst of the emotional firestorm that was a man split into unforgiving absolutes of himself, but now, as he sat in his office, already surrounded by notes and a budding literature review…..it would make an _incredible_ case study. A very subjective, observational study of course, as he hadn't had the time to organize any truly objective experiments at the time, but a study enough to offer new insight into the very idea of good and evil, to propel research forward toward a potential for understanding. What had happened today had challenged the very_ idea_ that those concepts couldn't really exist – McCoy had _seen_ them, seen what they had done individually.

…..And seen what they had done collectively.

To Jim.

And _that's_ what it all came down to.

Because, in order to publish that case study, McCoy would have to detail everything he had observed, to describe emotionally-loaded data as objectively as possible, and to put what happened to Jim out into the scientific community, to be read in that objective context. Of course McCoy wouldn't refer to Jim by name, but _McCoy's_ name would be on the paper, and it was easy enough to find out what ship he was assigned to. What was worse was that, even in the current age of information protection, it wasn't unlikely that someone would find a way to access the ship's logs and match up the events.

To put _Jim's_ name to the events.

And so, there were his two halves.

The compassion - the man who almost felt as if he would be betraying a confidence, who couldn't bear the thought of others looking at such a painful moment in his friend's life under the microscope of objectivity, who foresaw the follow-up questions the study would bring and, if Jim's identity was discovered, would cause him to relive that horror over and over again in the name of scientific progress…

…..And the passionate researcher - the budding psychologist fascinated with the working of the living mind, the far-reaching thinker who jumped at the chance to aid progress, who saw the potential advances, who felt it his duty to contribute such incredible data to the medical and scientific community.

Both sides couldn't win.

One would have to back down.

McCoy groaned, massaging his temples wearily. He switched off the monitor, stood up, and stretched. "No use sittin' here and worryin' at it," he decided. The answer would come to him eventually – he had the luxury of not being in a rush…..which was what was probably making the choice so difficult. Give him an emergency and he never even considered the fact that he _had_ two halves. Give him time to think….well, he got_ this_.

"And now I'm talkin' to myself – great," he muttered to the ceiling. With a final sigh, he smoothed out his uniform and headed for the door. He had patients to check on.

A quick bedside check and consult with Christine Chapel showed him that Sulu and the landing party were healing right on schedule. A hundred years ago, if they hadn't already been dead, each man would have lost several appendages to frostbite – thank _God_ for modern medicine. He wrote up some new orders for Christine and told her he'd check in again later, leaving the men in her capable hands.

The action brought him back to Kirk and Spock. McCoy shared more than a mutual friendship and a tendency toward dichotomy with those two men – he also shared the ability and need to delegate. He _certainly_ couldn't be everywhere at once, and he made sure he surrounded himself with a trusted, competent staff that he knew he could count on. He turned the landing party over to Christine and her nursing skills. And, in a way, he had turned Kirk over to Spock….for the moment at least. There was a reason he had sent Spock to check on Kirk twice that day. The first time, McCoy had been more concerned about the brandy-demanding Kirk ignoring Geological Technician Fisher's report that his hand was better – the violent grab and shout for alcohol had been a caricature of the man he knew, but the outright ignorance of a crewman's well-being was just plain _wrong_. It wasn't Jim Kirk. And so, McCoy delegated the task of checking up on Kirk to Spock – not because of the Vulcan's physical strength if Kirk became violent again, but because Spock was Jim's friend. He _cared_ - and that gave Spock every skill he needed to properly perform_ that_ task at _that_ moment, even if he didn't quite understand what McCoy expected him to _do_. The second time, when a sobbing Yeoman Rand stumbled into sickbay behind a bloodied Technician Fisher, McCoy had sent Spock again, but with the added knowledge that Spock would not be the best choice to stay with a crying, traumatized Yeoman – not because he wouldn't_ care_, but because McCoy was better trained and equipped for that task. And he left Kirk with Spock at the end of it all, after the transporter room, focusing his attention on the landing party's needs, knowing that he already had someone in place for _Kirk's_ needs. As Spock had put it so passionately that day, the Vulcan understood something of being split in two, of being at war with his selves – and Kirk _needed_ that understanding and experience right now. McCoy would have to sit with Kirk later – both on a professional _and_ personal level – but for now, he had others to attend to. Kirk was lucky to _have_ a Spock.

And so was McCoy.

It allowed him to focus on those crewmembers affected today that _didn't_.

McCoy walked into the next patient bay where Geological Technician Fisher was sitting on the edge of his bed, legs swinging aimlessly, eyes far away. McCoy cleared his throat to ease the crewman back to the present. Fisher looked up wearily.

McCoy saw the storm in the young man's eyes. He mentally took a breath, walked across the room, and perched himself on the bed across from Fisher. "Quite a day," McCoy mused aloud.

Fisher let out a bitter huff of agreement.

"Must feel like the fates conspired against you today," McCoy continued.

That got a half-smile, but one with no humor in it. "Yeah – wouldn't be surprised if Zeus himself was still juggling a lightening bolt with my name on it," Fisher muttered, cradling his previously injured hand.

"That hand bothering you again?" McCoy nodded toward the action.

Fisher shook his head.

"You did good today, Sam," McCoy said quietly.

Fisher's head jerked up. "Good?" he burst out.

"Good," McCoy thought to himself. "Here we go."

"Good?" Fisher repeated, eyes wide with disbelief. "I fell off a ledge, sliced open my hand, got beaten up by an evil version of my Captain, and accused the _real_ version of assaulting a crewmember!" his rushed words pitched up even as his breath ran out.

McCoy leaned forward, putting an anchoring hand on Fisher's forearm, forcing his focus. "You slipped and cut that hand when a bunch of unstable _rocks_, something I believe you are somewhat familiar with _Geological Technician_," McCoy's eyebrow quirked pointedly, "gave way under your feet, as they could have with any member of the landing party. The fact that you walked away with just a lacerated hand is a testament to your quick reaction to the fall…. or just plain luck – take your pick. You were beaten because you were interrupting an assault and calling for help for a fellow crewmember, and, even _without_ the knowledge that the Captain had been split, you backed Yeoman Rand's account and had the courage to verify what you saw - to name her attacker, rank be damned," McCoy corrected. "This is a good ship, Fisher, but even here, you could bet that not everyone would've done what you did."

Fisher was silent, watching McCoy's steady eyes for a long moment before dropping them with an almost relieved sigh. "I'm just so….." he struggled.

"Emotionally overwhelmed, physically exhausted, and in need of a solid rest?" McCoy suggested.

Fisher laughed. "Yeah, I guess that about covers it." His eyes darkened again in memory. "When I went past Yeoman Rand's quarters and she shouted for me to get Mr. Spock…." He swallowed roughly, "well, Doctor, it looked like the Captain…..I mean, _that man_….could have….."

"He _would_ have, had you not called for help and gotten him out of that room," McCoy finished quietly.

Fisher's face twisted in horror.

"And_ that's_ why you did good today, Sam," McCoy repeated, squeezing Fisher's arm supportively.

Fisher smiled lightly, as if finally believing it. "Thank you, Doctor," he whispered.

"No, thank _you_ son," McCoy said before standing up and slapping Fisher's shoulder good-naturedly. "Now, go see Nurse Chapel for your pain meds," he held up a hand to ward off any forthcoming protest, "which you _will_ need because nothing I did today is going to take away all that soreness and which you _will_ take because tryin' to suffer through the pain makes you a _fool_, not a martyr, and will only slow your recovery. Got it?" he fixed Fisher with a look.

"Yes sir," Fisher nodded firmly.

"Good," McCoy smiled, helping the young man to his feet. "Now go get your meds and get some rest. Doctor's orders. I want to see you tomorrow for a follow-up, but until then you're off-duty. Eat, sleep, and come back here if you need anything. Understood?"

"Understood," Fisher said.

"All right then, stop crowdin' up my sickbay – off you go," McCoy gestured toward the door.

Fisher grinned and went to find Christine.

McCoy sighed.

One down, one to go.

* * *

Ten minutes later, McCoy was walking into Dr. Helen Noel's office. The psychiatrist looked up with a smile. "Leonard," she greeted warmly, adding a final note to the chart in front of her before standing and gesturing McCoy to a chair. "I've heard that it's been quite a day," she opened.

McCoy sat with a grateful sigh. "It _has_ been that," he agreed with a weary chuckle. He took a breath and got to his point. "We're going to have our usual debriefing and interdisciplinary rounds later, but I was wondering if I could give you an early referral," he asked hopefully.

"Of course," Noel assured him, reaching back toward her desk for a PADD. "Critical?" she clarified.

"I think so," McCoy nodded. "I don't have much of an assessment for you," he apologized in advance, "but what I _did_ manage to write up is in the record – Yeoman Janice Rand."

Noel pulled up the record and scanned the note. She looked back up with a sigh. "Physical assault, attempted sexual assault," she shook her head, closing her eyes wearily. "All right, what do you have?" she asked, leaning back to listen to McCoy's full observations.

McCoy proceeded to fill Noel in on his brief conversation with Yeoman Rand before Kirk and Spock's arrival in sickbay. He detailed several concerning word choices, relating how the Yeoman had appeared to believe a Captain could have _ordered_ her to submit to such an attack, and of her worrying about getting Kirk into trouble. "Honestly, Helen, I'm pretty sure that, had Sam Fisher _not_ been injured when the Captain's duplicate ran out to stop him, that she wouldn't have identified her attacker at all."

Noel read the continuation of that thought in McCoy's face. "You think this has happened to her before – prior to her assignment here," she stated.

McCoy nodded. "I'd bet real money on it," he sighed heavily. He scrubbed his hands across his face tiredly. "I'd rather she see a proper psychiatrist first for this," he said, "and I think she'd probably be more comfortable with a woman at this early stage. Now, I know this isn't your particular area of expertise, but you've got a better background than I do. If you're not comfortable continuing sessions beyond an initial assessment, let me know – I have an old colleague at Atlanta Gen who specializes in traumatic violence cases and she's open to conducting video sessions. That's assumin' you don't have your own people to consult of course," McCoy finished sheepishly.

"No offense taken, Leonard," Noel reassured him. "I'd never turn down a new potential consult and you _know_ that – or _would_, if you weren't dead on your feet yourself," she chided.

McCoy's eyebrows rose in agreement as he nodded with a weary half-chuckle. "I know," he sighed. "I'm almost done," he promised.

"Well, you're done _here_," Noel insisted, standing and dropping the PADD lightly back on the desk. "I'll set up a session with Yeoman Rand in an hour or two, once I have the chance to sit with her situation."

McCoy stood as well. "Thanks, Helen," he smiled.

"You're welcome," she returned the smile. "I'll see you later for rounds – but if you think of anyone else in the meantime that needs an immediate consult, you know where I am."

McCoy nodded appreciatively, the doors swishing softly behind him as he headed back to his office.

* * *

McCoy sank into his desk chair and leaned back with a heavy sigh, trying to will more energy into his rapidly depleting body.

Assess and regroup.

The landing party was medically stable. Fisher was resting with proper pain medication. Rand was assessed and referred out to psychiatry.

That brought him back to Kirk.

Spock was with him now – McCoy could worry about a proper assessment, masked as a brandy-assisted discussion with a friend, later.

And so, with the compassionate half knowing that Jim had immediate emotional support, the researcher brought him back to his scattered notes, and his earlier debate.

The study.

Both sides couldn't win – he couldn't be both the compassionate friend shielding the incident from the scientific community _and_ the passionate researcher exploring new facets of the human mind at the same time.

One would have to back down.

McCoy switched the monitor back to his earlier literature review. The next study popped up: "How A Dichotomy Was Born: A Genetic History of Good and Evil."

How.

"_How do you feel Jim?"_

With a burst of newfound energy, McCoy refined his search.

And suddenly understood.

He was never at full-out war with his halves because he _didn't_ separate them – they only skirmished when he actually _thought_ about the dichotomy. Like Jim before today, McCoy didn't tend to think about it.

He realized that he didn't_ have_ to choose – he could be both the compassionate friend _and_ the passionate researcher – a full healer for Jim. One part didn't have to back down – because if it did, McCoy wouldn't be the healer he was.

The healer Jim needed.

Emergency measures kicked back in, all thoughts of a dichotomy erased as the two sides moved back into a seamless integration.

It wasn't about the study.

There was a greater priority.

"_How? I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see."_

The compassion had seen beyond those words, to the unspoken question in Jim Kirk's eyes:

_How do I deal with this?_

And so, the researcher dove purposefully back into the literature.

Because McCoy didn't have an answer for that.

Yet.


	5. Mudd's Women

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "Mudd's Women" – oh, this episode. I've always found this one a bit painful to watch – even though it's amusing, the fact that it was an 'early produced, later shown' episode is glaringly obvious and so many of the character actions and interactions just seem…._off_. I really wasn't sure where I was going to go with this one at first – I've always loved McCoy's sort of plaintive "it's not supposed to _do_ that" when Ruth, one of Mudd's women, walks past his medical scanner, but it wasn't until the very last scene that I finally found something to really use. During the final scene on the Bridge, McCoy responds to Spock's statement that he was glad the whole thing was over by saying that the recent events struck right at the heart – he then proceeds to mark his own heart before pointedly moving his hand to where Spock's would be, teasing him about his different anatomy…and he does it _wrong_. If you watch the scene, McCoy points to the right side of his chest when talking about the human heart, and then points to the left side under the armpit when talking about Spock's. I couldn't believe it – to the viewer, it would be _our_ left and right respectively, but on McCoy's own body, it was reversed. I couldn't believe that McCoy, physician that he is, would make that mistake. I then thought to Kirk's casual remark to Spock in the episode "The Enemy Within" where he tells Spock that "our good doctor's been putting you on again", which made me wonder if McCoy has sort of messed with Spock, in good, clean fun of course, before. I next recalled the second season episode "A Private Little War", where Spock is shot by a flintlock weapon, and McCoy states, as he's treating Spock in the transporter room, "lucky his heart's where his liver should be, or he'd be dead now," which would place Spock's heart in the upper right part of his abdomen. So, taking all this into account, along with the sort of bizarre amount of smiling Spock did in this episode, I decided that McCoy deliberately misrepresented the heart positions to mess with Spock – and this short piece became a journey into McCoy's playful side. "Mid-axillary" refers to an imaginary line straight down the side of the body from the middle of the armpit. "Tachycardia" refers to a fast heart rate, generally over one hundred beats per minute in humans. "Right upper quadrant" refers to the upper right part of the abdomen. The beginning dialogue between Spock and McCoy is taken directly from the episode. As usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world!

* * *

**5.**

"_I'm happy the affair is over. A most annoying emotional episode."_

McCoy paused briefly, a wonderfully devious, if quite possibly _unprofessional_ idea popping into his head at Spock's statement.

He couldn't help himself. After a day of drowning in a drugged fog, able to only _occasionally_ struggle to the surface and actually do his damn job…

He _needed_ this.

"Smack right in the ole heart," McCoy grinned in reply, fisting his left hand and bringing it across his body to pound the right side of his chest. "Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized, shifting a touch of seriousness into his expression, "in your case it would be about….here." McCoy shifted his fist back to his left side, marking a spot right along the mid-axillary line.

Spock appeared exceedingly pleased with himself as he delivered his usual rebuttal. "The fact that my internal arrangement differs from yours, Doctor, pleases me no end."

Spock returned to his station as McCoy shared his standard raised eyebrow and eye roll with Kirk – the normal response to their little interspecies teasing game. Kirk went back to overseeing the helm, while McCoy's eyes went back to Spock. Outwardly, he appeared to be simply observing the Vulcan, but inwardly….

…..Inwardly, he was rapidly approaching the point where he would no longer be able to maintain that casual façade. McCoy gave Spock one last thoughtful look before heading for the turbolift, the ship humming contentedly under his feet, Kirk's steady orders in the air and fresh lithium crystals under Scotty's watchful eye. As the doors closed, McCoy broke into a wide grin, eyes sparkling as he bounced high on his toes with the joy inherent in knowing that he just beaten Spock at their little game.

"Hah!" McCoy shouted to the empty lift, reveling in the feel of a real smile. "Non-emotional my Southern ass!" he muttered with a languid eye roll.

While McCoy may have been visibly affected by Mudd's women upon their arrival in the transporter room, he hadn't been so far gone that he hadn't noticed that Spock had been staring at the women as well. The Vulcan may have given Scotty and McCoy's response a bemused look, tinged with scientific curiosity and punctuated by a trademark raised eyebrow, but just as quickly, he went right back to silently staring – not _observing_, but _staring_. Spock's heart rate was _normally_ way beyond the human sympathetic response to sexual attraction, but McCoy had still been able to pick up a distinct elevation in that ridiculous baseline tachycardia, even beyond the galloping rhythms of both his own and Scotty's heart. And when Jim had repeatedly called for Scotty to confirm whether the crew had been successfully transported aboard, Spock could have _very_ easily leaned over a distracted Scotty and responded the first time Jim had asked. He usually_ would_ have – had he not been distracted himself. Instead, he had continued to watch the women until, several demands for information from the Captain later, Spock had finally looked pointedly at Scotty to respond. For all Spock's Vulcan logic and 'there is no emotion', he was _also_ half-human…..and McCoy had suspected that half had been quite affected by the women today and that Spock _had_ been distinctly distracted…..until he forcibly turned that part of himself off and pushed the focused Vulcan forward again.

But not all the way.

Spock was_ still_ slightly distracted.

And McCoy had proof.

Because he had incorrectly demonstrated the cardiac positions – two different ways. When responding to Spock on the Bridge moments earlier, McCoy had illustrated the human heart as being on the right side of the body, and Spock's as being on the left. Not only that, but he had also put Spock's heart at the mid-axillary line, while it was truly in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen.

And Spock hadn't noticed.

Sure, to the outside observer, it looked as if McCoy were putting the human heart on the left and the Vulcan on the right, but from _McCoy's_ perspective, on his _own_ body, he had both reversed them _and _shifted Spock's significantly from abdomen to chest.

And Spock hadn't said a word.

No comment on McCoy's error. No thinly veiled poke at the physician's medical knowledge and skill. Not even a raised eyebrow at the blatant misrepresentation in lieu of verbal correction.

Nothing.

He hadn't noticed.

And the _only_ way Spock wouldn't have noticed would be because he was distracted.

As he had been earlier in the transporter room.

"Ah, Spock – guess you're only half-human after all," McCoy chuckled to himself.

Yes, his gleeful little victory might be a bit unprofessional but _Lord_, he had needed that.

The turbolift came to a stop, the doors swishing open to the familiar corridor. McCoy forced himself to reestablish a touch of composure as he headed toward sickbay, toning the wild grin down to a small smile under shining eyes. The bounce never left his step – in fact it increased as he entered sickbay.

With the warmth of his deviousness still lighting his face, the professional edged back into his eyes – but far from dimming them, it only caused them to shine brighter.

A sample of that Venus drug was waiting to be analyzed and McCoy was excited to begin the study….because he _still_ didn't know why his scanner had reacted to Ruth like that.

It wasn't supposed to _do_ that.

And he had a feeling that, even _more _thrilling than the rare event of besting Spock at his own game, would be breaking down this drug.

The panel wasn't _supposed _to do that, but it _did_.

And he couldn't wait to figure out _why_.


	6. Miri

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "Miri" – ignoring the creepy children and Kirk's equally creepy semi-seduction of the title character, I love this episode. There is so much to work with here – so many little lines and layered expressions, and so many insights into McCoy's character. I've always felt that "Miri" is the first episode in season one where Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are really _together_ – I can _feel_ the friendship and the beginning of the brotherhood that strengthens as the series goes on. The three work so well together - they start displaying more of that lack of personal space, they use and know each other's strengths, the teasing is natural and spontaneous…..and of course, we get to see, for the first time, one of McCoy's core character traits – the self-sacrificing healer, the man who will put himself at risk before any other. I came to see a whole history behind McCoy's experience in this episode, a deep reasoning for his testing the cure on himself rather than waiting, and in McCoy's choice and Kirk and Spock's reaction, I saw hints of the future episode, "The Empath"…..and came to see "Miri" as setting the groundwork for the level of love and sacrifice in that later episode. Using all that, this chapter became quite a journey – following McCoy's inner thoughts and motivations from the very beginning of the episode, all the way through the end, where Kirk and Spock find that the cure worked on McCoy's unconscious form. At that point, I continued the episode, with a further look into the implications of McCoy's choice and its effect on those around him. The final part of this piece could be considered to have happened between the final scene on the planet and the tag on the Bridge. Most episode dialogue is marked in italics. Kirk's recollection of McCoy insisting that Kirk couldn't risk his life on a theory comes directly from the first season episode "The Enemy Within." Christine Chapel's fiancé, Roger, is from the first season episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" For those who haven't read my story "There Were Days", when I went to write McCoy's daughter, I heard her very clearly state that McCoy had named her "Johanna with an 'h'", hence that spelling here. This was written in one sitting so, as usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world! 6 down, 70 to go!

* * *

**6. **

As the tingle of the transporter faded, McCoy was besieged by an equally familiar, uncomfortable chill.

Desolation.

The unnatural silence in the wake of sudden, catastrophic, and widespread death.

McCoy had been in enough epidemic-ravaged communities to be able to smell the decay without seeing the bodies, to feel the loss even without a baseline number.

To hear the whispers of life clinging to the air beyond the relentless blows of an unmerciful, invisible enemy.

Plague.

He tried to hide the gnawing feeling behind a vague comment on antique architecture, but with Spock's analysis of centuries' worth of deterioration and a solid deduction that the distress signal was automated, the feeling only grew stronger. Automated distress signals were _never _a good sign, and with the painful images of every other plague-decimated world he had seen flashing through his head, McCoy knew it was just a matter of time until they confirmed that the SOS was only an echo of life long since torn from this world. The last survivors may have buried or burned the majority of the dead, but the last to die were always the first to be found – their bodies would still be above ground, broken down by time, climate, and the tooth and claw marks of the circle of life.

Finding the tricycle before the expected bone fragments was a surprise, but it proved to be the first, painful evidence in support of the ache in his gut. Jim, ever the history enthusiast, was fleetingly attracted to its antiquity, lifting the old toy and feeling the weight of the past in his hands. He passed it on to Spock's analysis, but the science officer quickly dismissed the object as being irrelevant to their objective, passing it on to McCoy. And McCoy…..

McCoy saw through the rust and broken tire – where Jim had felt old metalwork and the passage of time in the tricycle, McCoy felt the _lives_ surrounding it – the excited parents who purchased the bike, the overjoyed child who received it, proud smiles watching tiny legs furiously pumping equally tiny petals, shining eyes and streaming hair, scraped knees and elbows as gravity overtook the fragile balance of childhood, gentle hands and gentler words repairing skin and smoothing away tears.

McCoy placed the tricycle on its side in a reverent reflection of the recovery position – his internal healer outwardly manifesting itself as he unconsciously tried to recover that long-passed life. Keeping a hand on the body of the bike, he thoughtfully spun one back wheel - a softly squeaking prayer. As the wheel creaked with use and age, the healer felt for a heartbeat - the vibration in the body of the metal. He listened for breath - for those lost voices and emotions…and continued to listen even as he deeply mourned their loss.

He hadn't expected to, quite literally, be _tackled_ by one of those voices. And when it was all over, even as his inner scientist was calling the deceased being 'it' in lieu of solid data, McCoy _knew_ it was a child. No outward deformity, no internal madness, could imitate the truth in that sobbing voice – the anguished panic of a desperate, crying child.

McCoy mourned anew for finding the voice he had sought. His head bowed as a witness to death, the harsh memory of children dying in his arms as supplies waned, bewildered voices asking him why it hurt, strangled cries for parents long since taken by the same bacteria, trying to soothe with words distorted through a face mask, with hands and arms encumbered by isolation gear.

McCoy shook his head, forcibly clearing his thoughts. Finding this child, finding _life_ was no relief – in fact, it _increased_ his concern. Because the plague needed a host – and so where the _child_ had life….

So did the plague.

His mind was whirling with possibilities, working the idea of that impossibly fast metabolic rate over and over, when they found Miri. And more tears. More anguished panic. And with the passage of years toward adolescence…more fear.

The fear of increased understanding.

"_I wonder what happened to her, that she should be so terrified of us,"_ McCoy murmured to Jim's own pained focus. But he knew. If Miri's own words weren't enough – desperate pleas not to harm her, shrinking back from touch – her later validation of a sickness _was_. Being surrounded by sudden, unexplainable death was terrifying enough for an adult, let alone a child. When parents stopped acting like themselves, children struggled to understand why. And when parents became violent…children felt at fault, unable to process the concept of madness. McCoy could rattle off a dozen plague organisms that caused psychiatric symptoms…..and knew, with gut-wrenching certainty, that he was about to discover another.

When the first lesion appeared on Jim, McCoy's mind raced anew as the worst of his concern was recognized. Where there was life - the 'creature-child', Miri, the other children - the plague organism _also_ had life. And now the landing party, and potentially the entire crew, were new hosts, new transmitters…new victims.

McCoy could never abide that word – 'victim.' In the medical sense, he always felt that it implied that nothing could have been done, nothing tried.

And oh, was he going to try.

Because a plague was never just a microscopic organism and attached symptomatology. It had a face and a voice – that creature-child sobbing for his broken toy, Miri pleading for her safety, a hidden host of children somewhere nearby forced to rename themselves 'onlies' for the devastation around them, and now….his friends, the most familiar faces and voices of all.

And so the rush to the laboratory became less a search for answers, and more the first sprint toward the long, hard race for a cure.

As McCoy took up residence in front of an ancient light microscope, diving into his particular specialty, Kirk and Spock moved into theirs. Kirk liaised with the ship while assisting Spock in a records analysis, both of them posing questions, relevant finds, ideas and observations. Even in the stress of the moment, McCoy couldn't help but bask in the satisfaction of working so closely and so smoothly with these two men – the unspoken dance where each knew what the other needed and all worked toward one goal. Their customary, gentle teasing wove through the frantic research - a bright comfort amidst the lingering fear.

It was after another light bickering session with Spock that McCoy noticed it – the lesion on his hand had grown. The fact that they had all shown skin symptoms so rapidly was distressing enough, but the significant growth on his hand in just a short hour was alarming. Miri took his hand – _"it spreads real fast, I know. When you're old it covers you like anything."_

And_ that's_ when it all changed.

Not counting Spock and his combined genetics, McCoy was the oldest member of the landing party. The oldest,_ symptomatic _member. And he could feel Spock's raised eyebrow at Miri's declaration, felt Jim's lingering gaze as the Captain failed in an attempt to filter some teasing humor into his face at Miri's discernment, instead radiating an almost preemptive grief, his trademark refusal to give in, and underneath all that…the faint whisper of fear.

The fear in Miri's eyes upon first seeing the landing party. The fear the other children displayed by virtue of their hiding. The fear in the eyes of the dying children of Viridian II as his mind cursed the delay of the supply ships while his lips tried desperately to soothe an inconsolable loss.

And now McCoy's own, _new_ fear – the fear that the plague would take him out before he could discover the causative organism and find a cure - leaving Kirk to die and Spock to linger in isolation without the hope of a chance. McCoy wasn't one to think overly highly of himself, but he knew that his particular education, experience, and skill set were vital right now – Kirk was relentlessly focused and Spock was an outstanding scientist, but_ McCoy_ was the physician, the one with the background to be able to pull it all together. They _needed_ him in order to have a chance.

And McCoy would be damned if he didn't do everything in his power to _give _them that chance.

So he took his beamed-down equipment, focused his mind, and doubled his efforts. The race was truly on. McCoy wasn't the only one who began to work harder – the teamwork between Jim, Spock, and himself only became smoother, more focused – a perfect give and take of information and speculation that finally led to the first of the answers: a post-pubescent death sentence, with young Miri nearing execution. Confirmation that the 'creature-child' had indeed been a child just days ago. McCoy's heart ached. He hadn't been surprised to find the initial plan – life prolongation. It actually made perfect sense – no good ever came of trying to play God.

And here was further proof.

Jackasses.

McCoy sighed heavily, tearing his gaze away from Miri, and wincing as he saw Jim rubbing nervously at his own lesion-marked hand. But Jim characteristically pulled himself back together and, bless him, decided to attempt to reach the children. So, taking his gift with kids with him, Jim and Miri left – leaving Spock and McCoy to _their_ gifts – science and research…..so that they could have a way to save the lives that Jim brought back.

* * *

One hundred seventy hours.

Another dead child. _Louise._

And now, verification of what would happen to_ them_.

"_Only a matter of time before we all go mad – destroy each other until the last of us finally destroys himself." _

Even as McCoy voiced those words with the calm, clinical understanding, his grandpappy's stubborn Southern fire swelled in his gut as the implications became suddenly, frighteningly clear.

And then Spock reinforced Miri's earlier declaration – _"the older the victim, the more rapid the progress of the disease."_

At the word 'victim' the fire raged.

At the reminder of his earlier fear, he burned.

And as yet _another_ new fear formed, he exploded.

McCoy was already racing against time and the implications of his age on the disease progression, but now, with the verification of yet another madness-inducing plague in existence….

They would all go mad, destroy each other…..and being the oldest, and therefore the first to go, meant that McCoy would attempt to kill Kirk and Spock. McCoy didn't care _how_ distorted his thought processes became – he_ knew_ that he would know what he did, both now and in whatever lay beyond this life – and he could not, _would_ not live with that. What was worse was what would happen if he _didn't_ succeed – because it could only go one of two different ways. Kirk and Spock might resist harming McCoy, trying to protect _him_ instead of protecting themselves, and while McCoy was not a strong _physical_ fighter, if he retained any of his medical and pharmacological knowledge in that madness, he could kill either of them quite easily. So, Kirk and Spock could _still_ die by McCoy's hand, in their sheer reluctance to harm their friend. Or, they would kill McCoy, either accidently or by necessity to protect themselves, or God forbid, to protect Miri or one of the other children – and then Kirk and Spock would have to live with the memory of having killed a friend with their own hands. And McCoy _knew_ they wouldn't survive that – impending madness or not. It all came down to the fact that, in the end, McCoy would kill his friends – whether directly or indirectly, it didn't matter. He would take two lives.

And that would_ not_ stand with Leonard McCoy.

His determination grew, the seed of a plan forming behind the rapidly moving hands sifting reports, the blurring eyes scanning data. Because McCoy had been here before – in the storm of plague, all last-ditch efforts exhausted. They weren't there yet and McCoy was adamant that they _wouldn't_ ever reach that point, but he also wasn't naive enough to believe it _couldn't_ happen. When all hope of cure was gone, there still needed to be a plan – and his mind was desperately redistributing its resources to devote some attention to that truth.

And then he found it – a chain of viruses, something to concentrate the search. McCoy couldn't help but smile at the sheer joy of that small step toward their goal, at the incredible thought and research that went into the project, even as he simultaneously cursed the scientists for their stupidity. Then Jim, in his typical semi-naive view of science and medicine, told McCoy and Spock that they'd need to recreate the researchers' thinking, identify the virus, and develop a vaccine.

McCoy almost grinned as Spock met his eyes with an identical, disbelieving sarcasm. McCoy gave their mutually raised eyebrows voice – _"is that all Captain? We have five days you know."_

Kirk's chuckle and subsequent understanding of the nature of his request eased the tension considerably.

McCoy looked from a bemused Spock, eyes scanning the literature once more, to a chuckling, worried Kirk already planning his next move…..and he felt a renewed surge of affection for these two often infuriating, but incredible friends he had found.

Yes, he would do whatever necessary to fight the disease, to give them that chance…..and to spare them the end of madness's road.

He fought it…but his own responses slowed so insidiously that McCoy didn't even realize he was slipping until he caught the mistake that led him to miss the virus the first time. Fear surged at the very real possibility that he may not be able to keep his promise, but the joy overtook it because he had found that chance – he _had_ one to give them. He just had to hold on.

And he did. As the time ticked ominously by, he and Spock came up with a potential vaccine, but without their communicators, he couldn't confirm a dosage….and too much of a cure could just as easily kill. The cure would slow down the impossibly high metabolic rate that was the core of what killed those infected…just enough and the person would return to baseline – too much, and the metabolic rate would slow to a crawl, or stop all together. Spock was right – it very well _could_ be "a beaker full of death."

And there had been far too much of that already.

So Jim had gone to the children, to try and get the communicators, to get them back their chance….and as time passed, McCoy felt himself slipping further and further into the darkness of what he knew was to come.

He hadn't meant to shout at Spock…..but it wasn't only the short temper of disease progression that had led to it. Their time was almost up, McCoy was nearly at the point of having to admit he wouldn't be able to keep up his internal promise…and that final plan was rapidly becoming the only option. As he sank further into the illness, his mind flew back to every other identical situation he had seen – to that last minute desperation, knowing, with precise clinical expertise, that by the time information or help arrived, it was going to be too late. Spock's logic insisted that they wait, that the cure could be fatal. McCoy's gut insisted that the disease very well _would_ be.

That he was on the precipice.

And he would _not_ harm his friends.

If he couldn't see them saved, he would at least do them no harm.

McCoy's voice became a dangerous growl as he demanded, _"How much longer do you want to wait?" _He stalked past Spock, through a fog of the echoes of long dead cries.

He knew Spock would go check on Jim, to see if he could speed up their progress.

It was only logical.

And so Spock left.

And McCoy put the final plan into motion.

They needed to know if they had the cure, and without the computers, live subject testing was the only option – and there was no way in hell McCoy was going to test it on a member of the crew or one of those children – so that left him. If the dose was too low, he would still be standing there, reworking the dosage, when Spock got back. If the dose was correct, he'd be waiting with hypo in hand to inoculate everyone who walked through the door. And if the dose was too high…McCoy would be dead, but in that death, he could do some good. Spock could determine if the medication had indeed worked, and get the Enterprise to adjust the dose accordingly. And McCoy would be beyond the impending madness and therefore beyond hurting his friends. Kirk and Spock would be safe – they wouldn't die physically by his hands, and they wouldn't die emotionally by being forced to kill him.

And Spock said he was illogical.

The hypo hissed.

Within milliseconds, McCoy had his answer.

The dose was too high.

But it _was_ the cure.

As he hit the table, he felt the symptoms fading, even as he felt his autonomic functions grinding to a halt.

And as he fell, he shouted for Spock – to pick up where McCoy left off, to tell Jim they had a cure….

….to be McCoy's hands and deliver that chance at life.

* * *

Fourteen hours later, McCoy was surprised to open his eyes.

He was even_ more_ surprised to find himself in sickbay.

But as he struggled to focus on the sounds of his monitors, he wasn't _particularly _surprised to hear Christine Chapel's greeting.

"You're an idiot."

McCoy blinked sluggishly, trying to bring his brain back up to speed. "Why?" he croaked, voice much slower than he had intended.

"You know why," Christine growled pointedly, running a vitals scan and adjusting the bed controls. McCoy felt the mattress shift support from his left side to his right.

McCoy thought hard, trying to recall the answer to his own question.

Christine saw the very moment he remembered.

"Oh," McCoy sighed.

"Yeah, oh," Christine gave him a look.

"How?" McCoy asked, shifting his head to actually look up at her. He knew he didn't have the answer for _that_ one. The dose had been too high – he had felt his body shutting down as he fell. Medically speaking, he should be dead.

"I'll let the man who _breathed_ for you answer that question once I make sure you're actually going to _stay_ alive," Christine's icy voice lost some of its chill with the warm undercurrent of relief that accompanied her brisk assessment. Satisfied for the moment, Christine adjusted the alarm parameters and picked up her PADD. Before turning for the door, she laid a familiar, gentle hand on McCoy's arm. "Everyone's fine and you're back to baseline. I'll fill you in later – these two have been waiting for you to wake up." She paused. "This better not become a habit," she warned him, but there was the barest hint of a waver in those hard words. She looked over the bed. "He's all yours. Tell him what you need to, but don't change those numbers," she insisted, pointing to the monitors.

As Christine left, McCoy slowly turned his head to the right and his brain finally kicked back in as Kirk and Spock came into view. "Jim! Spock! You're all right?" his breathless voice was warm with joy. "The children?" he added hurriedly.

"We're all fine, Bones," Kirk assured McCoy, laying a hand on the physician's forearm, the softest hint of a tremor in the strong fingers.

"Indeed, Doctor, we all received the correct dose of the vaccine," Spock intoned drily.

McCoy's eyebrow quirked at Spock's open sarcasm…until he remembered Christine's words and quickly sobered.

_I'll let the man who breathed for you answer that question._

Oh hell.

"You found me," McCoy stated softly.

"Yes, Doctor," Spock replied just as quietly, "and I should appreciate if you would refrain from such spontaneous fits of illogic in the future, as I have no wish to sustain your respiratory function again."

McCoy saw the emotion radiating from those dark eyes. "It slowed autonomic function that severely?" he asked. "I felt it starting….." he trailed off.

"The dose you injected yourself with was five times the therapeutic dose," Spock said. "I returned to the room at your call and found you unconscious on the floor. Your heart rate and respiratory function were significantly depressed. The Captain came back with the communicators two minutes later and witnessed the fading of the blemishes on your face. We contacted the Enterprise for the correct dosage, and you went into respiratory arrest. Dr. M'Benga advised the Captain and myself in artificial respiration until we were able to vaccinate ourselves and return with you to the ship. You required four hours of respiratory and cardiovascular support in sickbay before resuming regulation of your own autonomic functions and remained unconscious for a total of fourteen point five hours," Spock finished, voice even under haunted eyes.

"I'm sorry, Spock," McCoy whispered tiredly.

"An apology is both illogical and unnecessary, Doctor," Spock replied. "However, an explanation would be…..appreciated."

"Why, Bones?" Kirk's whisper was raw with feeling. "You and Spock said yourselves it could be fatal…why didn't you wait for me to get back with the communicators?"

McCoy swallowed at the pleading timbre to Kirk's voice. "Jim…"

"Do you have _any_ idea how I felt when I saw you on the floor?" Kirk's growl broke on a hitch of breath. "I thought you were _dead_, Bones, that the disease _killed_ you, when we were _so close_ to having the cure. And then Spock told me that you injected yourself…..and Bones, I swear, if I wasn't so glad to see the vaccine working, I would have strangled you myself…..and then you stopped breathing, and …"

McCoy's heart clenched as Kirk began to ramble. "Jim, I….."

Kirk held up a hand. "Just….tell me why Bones," he half-pleaded, half-ordered. "Please," he added softly.

Spock's steady gaze echoed that plea.

McCoy sighed heavily. "Two years after graduating medical school, the emergency relief team I volunteered with was called to an epidemic on Viridian II."

Spock's eyes widened.

"You've heard of it, Mr. Spock?" McCoy noted the Vulcan's response.

"Indeed, I have," Spock nodded slowly.

Kirk looked between the two men for answers.

"The main village of Viridian II was nearly wiped out by an aggressive bacterial infection eighteen years ago," Spock explained.

"An aggressive, _resistant_ bacteria," McCoy corrected, accent flaring with exhaustion and memory. "There were twenty thousand villagers on record. Ten thousand had already died by the time we got there, and in the week it took us to isolate and engineer a viable cure, another two thousand were lost. One of the necessary components of the cure was rigelin, a substance we don't generally stock much of in the emergency kits. We needed more to vaccinate the rest of the population and sent a priority request to the nearest supply ship….but they were delayed at a non-priority drop-off. They should have arrived in two days. They took eight."

"How many?" Kirk's voice was barely a whisper.

"Another two thousand," McCoy's eyes closed, the images vivid on darkened lids. "Mostly children….who died in a stranger's arms to the touch of an isolation suit, their parents long since gone."

Spock bowed his head.

Kirk was silent.

They both knew whose arms had cradled those children.

"So Miri and the children….." Kirk began to understand.

"Jim, I've been to more plague-decimated planets than I care to remember," McCoy interrupted with a weary drawl, "and I knew, from the first breath of air on that planet, that I was on another. We were nearly out of time…._.I_ was nearly out of time. My reflexes were already slowed, the vaccine took longer to synthesize than it should have, even with Spock's help, and our tempers were short – madness wasn't far behind. We _needed_ that vaccine, before we lost the ability to properly _use_ it. And I know you were trying to get those communicators…but I _know_ where that final line is, Jim… I know what it's like to wait for help that's just seconds too late…and I made the call. Without the computers, it _had_ to be a human test, and I was already the most far gone."

"Still an illogical choice," Spock insisted, but it seemed almost half-hearted, an expected rebuttal.

"Illogical to _you_ maybe," McCoy retorted.

"Bones," Kirk's voice was eerily quiet. "You told me once that I couldn't risk my life on a theory. Tell me how this is different."

McCoy sighed heavily. "Jim…." He groaned.

"No, Bones," Kirk demanded. "If you're going to demand that of me, then I'm damn well going to demand it of you, understand?"

Spock's eyebrow shot up.

"That goes for you too Spock," Kirk and McCoy focused on the Vulcan simultaneously.

Spock gave a resigned, but understanding nod.

"All right, Bones?" Kirk persisted.

"Jim, I can't promise you that," McCoy said honestly.

"Just like I couldn't promise _you_," Kirk shot back, voice gentle.

"Nor could I," Spock put in.

"So what do you want me to say Jim?" McCoy asked wearily.

"That you'll _try_ – that you'll talk to us and try to find another way. And Spock and I will do the same," Kirk looked to Spock for confirmation, and received it in one, firm nod.

"All right, Jim, Spock," McCoy met each man's eyes. "Agreed."

"Agreed," Kirk and Spock echoed.

"Good," Kirk nodded, satisfied for the moment. "Because I _never _want to see you like that again, Bones," he said vehemently, face lined with fear, the image of McCoy's unconscious form on the floor under Spock's worried guard seared into his memory.

"And I would prefer that _you_ act as the physician, not I," Spock added. "I am glad to leave such treatments to your expertise."

McCoy's eyes widened. "Why Spock, you sure I heard that right? Almost sounded like a compliment."

"I do believe you require more rest, Doctor," Spock deadpanned. "Your hearing does appear to be in error."

McCoy grinned weakly at the sparkle in the Vulcan's eyes. "Yeah, I thought so," he chuckled softly. He looked at Kirk and Spock seriously. "I know you're not lookin' for an apology, but you're getting one, both of you," he held up a hand to ward off further protest. "I'm sorry I put ya'll through that," he apologized honestly. "And _thank you_ for doin' what you did."

"Apology accepted, Bones," Kirk smiled, standing up with a grunt. "And you're welcome – but like Nurse Chapel said, you'd better not make a habit of it."

"Not planning to," McCoy said softly.

"An insufficient answer, as one can still 'do' without 'planning to do'," Spock pointed out.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" he fixed Spock with a narrow glare. "And don't get me started on non-committal answers. Every time you're in my sickbay I sweah, asking you anythin' is like….."

"All right, that's enough," Christine came striding back in. "You get him started on that, and those monitors will _never_ stop flashing." She glared from McCoy to Kirk and Spock. "Which they _shouldn't_ be because I _told_ you to keep those numbers where they were."

"Captain, I do believe we are required on the Bridge," Spock stood up briskly.

"Chicken," McCoy muttered under his breath.

Kirk grinned at McCoy before moving to Spock's side. "I believe you're correct, Mr. Spock," he agreed.

Christine rolled her eyes.

Kirk squeezed McCoy's arm one last time. "Take it easy, Bones – we'll see you later."

Spock nodded his agreement. "It is good to see you well, Doctor," he said quietly.

"Thanks to both of you," McCoy's voice was soft with gratitude.

"Thanks to_ you_, Doctor, the Captain and I were able to return with you to the ship," Spock replied. He paused. "I must admit to a particular lack of understanding regarding the medical mind. I do believe there is logic to be found there…..however I find it difficult to pin point."

"Well, if _you_ figure it out, let me know," Christine put in, noting the new vitals in her log.

Spock's eyebrow shot up against Kirk's burst of laughter. And with McCoy's muttered attempt at a rejoinder, they were gone.

Christine helped McCoy get comfortable, ran through another quick assessment, and answered his more specific questions. As his eyes began to close, she asked a question of her own. "You ever going to tell them the truth?" she fixed him with a knowing look.

McCoy sighed heavily. That woman and her perception…

"That _was_ the truth," he tried to insist.

Christine didn't buy it. "_Some_ of the truth," she corrected him. "But not all of it – because the next time you do it, and I know there will _be_ a next time…..it won't be because of this case."

"I don't….." McCoy tried again.

"You don't want the Captain and Mr. Spock to know, and they _won't_," Christine filled in. "Because I won't tell them. But I want to know that there's a reason behind the next time I'm putting you on life support. A damn good one."

McCoy realized he owed her that. So he told Christine everything – how his age affected the spread of the disease, how the madness would have affected the three of them, how time disappeared and the need grew ever more critical…..and how he had to find the answer, to give Kirk and Spock that chance. How his fears rapidly approached reality. How he couldn't risk lives. Couldn't risk Kirk and Spock's lives.

Christine swallowed hard. "My _fiancé_ wouldn't have thought to protect me like that," she whispered. She cleared her throat roughly. "I hope you three realize how lucky you are, to have what you have. Thank you for telling me," her voice was thick with gratitude.

McCoy nodded quietly.

"Don't think I'm still not going to call you an idiot when you wake up though," she warned.

"I'm counting on it," McCoy chuckled. "Jo would do the same thing." He quickly sobered, wondering why he had brought his daughter, an extremely private topic, into the conversation.

Christine smiled softly as McCoy's exhaustion brought his true thoughts to voice. "Good girl," she grinned. "I'll just join her then."

And McCoy fell into an uneasy sleep with the sound of Christine's 'good girl' echoing in his ears.

* * *

Several hours later, McCoy woke with a jerk to the memory of shrieking sobs for long-absent parents and the equally desperate, low voice coming from his own lips – "shhh, it's all right now sweetheart….no, I'm sorry, Mommy's not here….no, no, you're not a bad girl…you're a good girl, such a good girl….."

Christine saw the need in his eyes and ran to get M'Benga's okay for discharge. With a promise to return in the morning for a follow-up and to call either sickbay or Kirk or Spock if he needed anything, McCoy was allowed to return to his quarters.

The comm buzzed as soon as the doors swished shut behind him. "Bones, you all right?" Jim's voice was low with concern. "Nurse Chapel said you were discharged but I thought….."

McCoy looked from Kirk to the silently concerned Spock standing behind him. "I'll be all right," he assured the two of them. "You're both all right?" he suddenly had to ask.

"We are perfectly well Doctor," Spock reassured McCoy, with an almost painful gentleness.

"Good," McCoy smiled wearily.

"Get some sleep Bones – and remember your promise…call us if you need anything," Kirk said.

The screen went dark.

McCoy sank into the chair. Kirk and Spock were fine. The _children_ were fine –and would see a future.

The cries of all those who had _lost_ that future re-took his memory, crowded his hearing, darkened his vision in a rush of overwhelming grief. Swaying, McCoy did the only thing he _could_ do, the only thing he had _needed_ to do eighteen years ago.

He toggled the comm. She had been two years old when he collapsed on the rescue ship with the echo of fourteen thousand dead constricting each beat of his heart…..with the screams of thousands of frightened children distorted through the air filter, the fevered bodies he could never properly comfort. She hadn't been able to say much, but she didn't need to. He had just needed to see her face – her blessedly healthy face.

And it had worked – he had finally slept that night.

The screen flared to life. "Hiya Daddy! I wasn't expectin' to hear from ya until later this week. You okay?"

McCoy basked in the sight of his little girl. His twenty year old brilliant nurse/researcher-in-training.

His blessedly healthy child.

"Hi sweetheart – I just wanted to see that gorgeous face," he smiled.

"Mushbrain," Johanna teased. A mirror image of his own blue eyes watched him closely from the screen. "You sure you're okay Daddy?" she asked.

"I'm okay Jo," McCoy assured her. And he was.

_Now_ he was.

* * *

When Kirk and Spock snuck in to check on him later, he was peacefully sleeping to the glow of an idle comm unit. Afraid to wake him, they let it be.

And when Christine came to check on McCoy, she also let the comm be. But she knew who he had called.

Christine tucked that information aside, ready to guard that secret along with the new, full understanding of his actions that day. He did what he did because he was a healer – and lives were counting on him. But he also did it because he was _McCoy_ - he couldn't harm others, wouldn't take life – the lives of innocents, the lives of friends. And Christine was keeping that secret because McCoy _knew_ that if Kirk and Spock ever heard that reasoning, of their role in McCoy's choice that day, that they would forever analyze his future actions for that line of thought, and he wouldn't be able to make that decision again – to honor his oath, to make that sacrifice.

And he_ would_ do it again.

McCoy had as much as said so himself when he confided in her.

And Christine, torn between her own healer's oath and McCoy's trust in her understanding of _his_, resolved to keep that secret vow.

Because even as Christine knew it was going to break her heart, she marveled at the depth of McCoy's compassion, at the love he had for all life.

At the love he had for the protected daughter behind the darkened comm screen, the love he had for the commanding officers of this ship, whose lives he had placed above his own.

At the kind of love that she realized she never would have had with Roger.

Christine smiled fondly at the sleeping form, swallowing back a sudden surge of emotion as she turned for the door.

She hoped that Kirk, Spock, and Johanna knew the devotion they had in this man.

And how _blessed_ they were to have it.


	7. Dagger of the Mind

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "Dagger of the Mind" – not a particular favorite of mine, but there is one scene that always grabs my attention. The scene where McCoy comes onto the Bridge while Kirk is talking to Dr. Adams about Van Gelder's identity always intrigues me. I was fascinated by the quiet thoughts playing through McCoy's face as he stands just outside the turbolift doors, thinking deeply while listening to Kirk before moving to his side and almost tentatively stating that Adams' words don't ring true. The continued scene, where McCoy continues to insist something is wrong and is ignored by both Kirk and Spock for his lack of hard data on that feeling frustrates _me_ as much as it probably did _him_. I loved McCoy's obvious expertise when he insisted that Adams' suggestion of a superior facility was ridiculous, and I always felt that McCoy had a history with Adams' work by the way he said that Adams knew better. I nearly cheer for McCoy each time he finally tells Kirk that the Captain has to answer McCoy's medical log doubts, thus beginning the investigation. I wanted to explore that scene further, as well as the fallout of the episode, where I felt that McCoy would likely have some guilt with the fact that Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Helen Noel did not have the best of days during the investigation he began. I particularly wanted to give Helen some exploration, especially the fact that, toward the end of the episode, she killed a technician on Tantalus when she pushed him back against the panel and he was electrocuted. I felt McCoy would recognize what everyone went through and would reflect on each of them individually in preparation for his subsequent treatment sessions. Here is the result. Any recognizable dialogue from the episode is obviously not mine. This was written in one sitting so, as usual, please excuse any blatant errors. Thank you so much for reading and for your support as I explore this world!

_Edited 2/12/11 for one glaring oversight. Thank you SherlockiANNE for making me aware of my misstep. This is what happens when I write and edit while still ridiculously sick - I mean to go back and fix something and completely forget to do so. All set now :)

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_

**7.**

Leonard McCoy was not a pessimistic man. He may have been prone to melancholy and introspection on occasion, but by nature he possessed an amazingly stubborn optimism, an unbreakable hope and belief in the goodness of life, an unshakeable stalwart core beneath passing moments of gruffness and haunted blue. He consistently looked for the good in people, strove to bring it out with his own actions, and believed in the goodness of his colleagues, in their mutual dedication to their oath.

Until they shattered that belief, that _trust_, with one unforgiveable action, dulling sparkling blue, smothering passionate movement, and by empathetic extension, injuring McCoy just as surely as they did the others who had trusted their commitment to life.

McCoy was certainly not naive enough to believe that everyone in his profession was in it for the right reasons. He had seen the fall of egocentrism, of neglect, of unethical behavior before. He had helped _expose_ it before.

But it still hurt.

Each time it happened, it strove to dim his inner light, to crush his optimism, to cloud his eyes to all the good that still existed. And each time, he treated his wounds, smoothed the scars with a renewed resolution and dedication to his oath, and practiced what he sought. He refused to give into the darkness that had consumed those who had hurt so many of the lives they had all sworn to heal.

The darkness that he had found again today.

McCoy had never trusted Dr. Adams. He had followed the penology expert's studies closely over the years, had read the overwhelming praise doled out in peer-reviewed journals, had watched wave after wave of penal colony adopt Adams' framework for their facility protocol. He saw excitement sweep the general public, saw people like Jim, with no rehabilitative background, visit the colonies, and return with wide-eyed awe, speaking of Adams as some sort of long-awaited messiah, gushing words like 'revolutionary', 'humane', 'resorts.' Quoting impossibly perfect statistics.

It just hadn't _felt_ right. Every time McCoy read another of Adams' studies or a report on one of his colonies, he heard his grandpappy's strong voice.

_That dog don't hunt._

And when McCoy saw Dr. Adams for the first time by vidscreen at a remote access symposium on penology and rehabilitative medicine, it was barely five minutes before he heard his grandmammy's sure drawl as well.

_Boy's crooked as a dog's hind leg and lower'n a snake's belly._

She only combined those two expressions when someone _really_ didn't strike her right.

And Adams _really_ didn't strike McCoy right.

Adams was smooth. He was quick with the right words and a practiced smile, moved seamlessly between almost bombastic speeches and colloquial hob-nobbing, and was accommodating to a nearly unheard of degree.

Dangerous.

So personable that just his name alone seemed to immediately erase from everyone's minds the fact that _no one_ had been able to reproduce Adams' work independently. The only facilities using Adams' method that had achieved Adams' near perfect results were those that Adams _himself_ had attended to personally.

No, that dog most certainly did _not_ hunt.

McCoy had been bothered by Adams and his work for years, but since he was not a penologist and didn't focus on rehabilitative medicine in his own practice, McCoy often found the unsettling feelings pushed to the side. He had far too many responsibilities and research demands of his own to truly follow that area. Sometimes he completely _forgot_ about the man.

Until today.

Until he struggled to sedate a former Tantalus colony scientist with an unidentifiable diagnosis and a tendency toward psychotic rants with just the right disturbing ring of truth to them. Not that such things couldn't happen with mental illness – schizophrenics could be completely rational and logical one moment before seamlessly moving into delusion the next. But this was different. Something just didn't feel right.

And here was Adams' name again.

When McCoy had wandered onto the Bridge, still deep in thought, he hadn't been planning to say anything just yet. He was going to wait until he could discuss the matter with Jim and Spock privately first.

But then he heard Adams' sickeningly smooth response over the comm, heard him verify Van Gelder's identity as if he was trying to defuse the shocking discovery ahead of time. He listened to Adams' explanation of Van Gelder's current condition, using the incredibly convenient excuse of an experimental treatment gone wrong (thus covering the inability to match the symptoms to any known psychiatric illness) with just the right touch of respect and admiration by giving Van Gelder the image of the highly ethical man who refused to administer a potential cure until he was sure that it would indeed do so.

But one had to be ill oneself to determine if a self-tested cure was effective. If McCoy hadn't been infected by the virus on Miri's planet, administering the cure to himself would have proven nothing - he couldn't cure something he didn't _have_. Preventative medicine was something different, but Adams had said that the experimental beam was hoped to 'rehabilitate incorrigibles' which meant that the subjects had to already be suffering from a certain level of illness, which supported the fact that it was _curative_, not _preventative_, therefore, Adams' explanation didn't follow. There would have been_ no_ scientific, logical reason for Van Gelder to test a curative treatment on his healthy mind for the purpose of determining effectiveness.

No, right now, Van Gelder was ringing_ far_ more true than Adams was.

And McCoy said so.

He told Jim that Adams' words didn't ring true, endured Jim's irritation and complete disregard for gut intuition at McCoy's insistence that while he couldn't explain it, he just didn't _believe_ Adams. He barely held back his frustration as Jim expounded the greatness of Adams' colonies, the perfection of his methods, the wild hope and joy at an answer to a question that had plagued humanity for centuries - emotions that completely clouded all possibility as to the thought that the answer might _not_ be so perfect. It was everything McCoy had heard and felt over the years in relation to Dr. Adams, and right here, right now, it was all coming to an impossible head. He _begged_ Jim to listen. He almost _decked_ Spock for interrupting with the 'logical' question to pose to Adams regarding the return of Van Gelder.

But then Adams responded to Spock's query. He asked if the Enterprise would be passing any superior hospital facilities to maximize Van Gelder's treatment options.

And McCoy had him.

It was a _blatant_ attempt at redirection. By transferring Van Gelder elsewhere, no one would have the opportunity to match up the seemingly delusional rants with the corresponding reality of the colony.

Jim didn't see it, but he turned to McCoy for the recommendation. "Well Bones, you've got the ball. You care to recommend a better place?" he asked.

_Now_ Jim had to listen. And McCoy _needed_ to be heard. He told Jim that there _were_ no superior facilities, stressed that Adams _knew_ that. He reiterated that the _real_ point was that something unusual was going on down there, to which Jim interrupted again with the accusation that it was simply an assumption.

McCoy had had enough. For years, Adams' so-called revolutionary, yet irreproducible treatment had been lauded while simultaneously making his gut churn. Jim had insisted that Van Gelder was not their problem earlier during McCoy's initial post-sedation report, but the man was currently in McCoy's sickbay, under McCoy's care, and _that_ made him McCoy's responsibility. And if Adams was involved in the illness of McCoy's patient, then investigating Adams was also McCoy's responsibility.

This ended now.

Jim said the ball was in McCoy's court, so McCoy ran with it.

In just the language Jim required to mount a proper response.

"I'm required to enter any reasonable doubts into my medical log. That requires you to answer in _your_ log. Sorry, Jim."

And there it was.

Maybe Jim was right – maybe it _was_ all just a lot of 'I don't believe it', 'I can't explain it.' Maybe McCoy _was _making assumptions.

But McCoy knew he wasn't.

None of this struck him right. Adams didn't ring true in the slightest.

And now Jim was just as duty-bound as McCoy to find out why.

* * *

And in the end, they _did_ find out why.

Found out that McCoy had indeed been correct in his doubts.

But there was no relief, no vindication, no joy in that find.

Adams had succumbed to the darkness, forcing his will on others, suffocating already ill minds with his own needs and wants, inflicting persistent pain to hide his own harsh secrets. Destroying not only the _evil_, but also the _good_ of previous lives, emptying minds until they were mere husks, blank but for what Adams required to maintain the illusion of his success.

Preying on an emptiness, a loneliness that he himself inflicted on those given to his care.

So many, admitted for healing, plunged into the darkness of Adams' betrayal.

So many names McCoy did not yet know, harmed by their supposed healer.

And so many he _did_ know.

Kirk.

Spock.

Helen.

Adams would never practice again – a verdict carried out, not by the legal system McCoy had hoped for, but the harshness of ironic justice. Betrayed by his own betrayal – killed by a forced loneliness with no smooth voice to fill the emptiness – the nothingness growing until it overtook life itself. McCoy knew that by insisting on the investigation, he had been instrumental in keeping the darkness from reaching innumerable others sent to Dr. Adams' care.

But it didn't erase the darkness that still surrounded him. The death of a man, even one as reprehensible as Adams. The shadow of guilt for insisting on a course of action that ended up harming friends and colleagues.

And oh, had they been hurt.

Spock, forced into an intensely personal and dangerous Vulcan ritual with the tortured mind of a non-Vulcan, with both his own and McCoy's worry for Jim electrifying the process.

Jim, subjected to Adams' neural neutralizer, thoughts torn from his mind, forged memories hammered into place, threats of pain threaded into threats to Adams' superiority, struggling to understand the machine as his own doubts rose, nearly becoming its next victim, yet still managing to rise up long enough to set a rescue into effect.

And Helen – the psychiatrist in desperate need of her own training. Helen, who had lost a role model in Dr. Adams' betrayal to a field she held so dear, a man whose theories she wove into her own practice of her craft. Helen, who had harmed her Captain, a man under her care and expertise, by using personal fantasies, born of momentary weakness and intense loneliness, in her testing of the neural neutralizer, using the beam's creation of emptiness and loneliness to try and ease her own. Helen, who had come through in the end, attempting to enable their rescue by shutting down equipment she had no knowledge of, who succeeded in a desperate moment of self-defense. A desperate moment where she killed a man. Another healer descending into the darkness of death, one even darker for her light nature and the tragedy of necessary, split-second action.

So many, so hurt.

And by extension, McCoy bled as well.

It _always_ hurt.

But he had work to do. Van Gelder was returning to Tantalus with a team of intensive therapists and medical personnel to attend to Adams' victims down _there_, so McCoy's responsibility shifted down to a narrower focus - to attend to the three up _here_.

And so he pushed away the shadowy threat of pessimism cast by the overwhelming darkness the day had brought. Now was not the time for melancholy - it was time for introspection turned action. Adams' betrayal strove to shatter McCoy's optimistic core, but it wouldn't succeed, because McCoy _needed_ to believe in the goodness of life in order to help restore it to those entrusted to his care.

And so, he treated this latest scar as he did all others. He renewed his resolution and dedication to his oath and stepped forward to practice what he sought. To be the healer his friends and colleagues needed, to use his own unshakeable inner light and goodness to reach that core in them. To defy Adams' darkness with their own natural light.

McCoy refused to allow Adams' forced despair to hold.

His grandpappy and grandmammy had taught him a lot – good manners, good cooking, shrewd character judgment – but most of all, they had taught him to stick to his beliefs, even when they weren't the most popular ones at the time. "Good ol' Southern stubbornness, tougher'n two day old congealed grits," his grandpappy used to describe his grandmammy. And whenever McCoy felt like he was at the end of his rope with his medical studies, they'd both chime in with an old favorite.

_Don't let the bear get'cha._

McCoy had never seen a bear – they were extinct, living only in dusty library tomes and old holovids. But after seeing an old holo of a bear chase, he could understand how the expression came to mean what it did.

Don't quit. Don't give up.

Adams' darkness, the injury he had inflicted on others was the bear. And McCoy was sure as hell not going to let it overtake him, or those he had sworn to care for.

So he dug in, strengthened that inner belief, and strode out of the room.

To treat his patients.

To look that bear right in the eyes.

And send it on its way.


	8. The Corbomite Maneuver

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "The Corbomite Maneuver" – another early episode with some off-key characterization, yet one moment really struck me. During the scene where McCoy comes up to the Bridge after Balok's message and tells Kirk that the whole ship heard it, watch DeForest Kelley's hands and eyes. He runs his hands over the command chair and railing, and his eyes are focused on the viewscreen the entire time, except for a very brief glance at Kirk….and Kirk's eyes are focused right on McCoy the whole time, as if reading something more in McCoy's actions. The way their eyes were in this scene almost mirrored an earlier moment in the episode, where McCoy and Kirk are talking on the turbolift and McCoy is telling Kirk that he may be pushing Bailey and the crew too hard. Again, McCoy is staring straight ahead, while Kirk looks right at him. Back in the later scene, after McCoy tells Kirk about the crew hearing Balok's message, Kirk gives this little, barely noticeable nod…..and then goes to the command chair to address the crew. It was as if there was a completely unspoken conversation, where Kirk suddenly became aware of the crew's fears through McCoy, and McCoy silently told him that they needed to hear their Captain's voice. Such subtle little things, yet they felt so meaningful. On the DVDs, these scenes are from 15:01-15:16 and 22:31-22:55, and so, continuing my apparent fascination with minutiae, this piece was born, based on approximately 29 seconds' worth of footage. Thank you for your continued support and patience – real life may slow the frequency of these updates, but the series will be completed. Thank you so much for reading!

* * *

"_I don't need textbooks to know that you could've promoted him too fast. __Listen to that voice__." ~McCoy to Kirk, The Corbomite Maneuver (emphasis mine)_

**8. **

There were moments Jim Kirk swore, were Leonard McCoy both deaf and blind, that the physician would _still_ hear more than the rest of the crew combined.

Moments like now.

Overtired, stressed, facing yet another new threat, and with at least one crewmember teetering dangerously over that unknown precipice, Kirk's inner perfectionist raged – a deep-seated coping response. Set simulations. Give me 100%. He didn't even _know_ that he was doubting his own actions regarding Bailey until McCoy told him right to his face; didn't hear that inner voice until a pensive Southern-tinged drawl voiced it aloud for him, along with a quiet, but firm reminder.

_Listen to that voice._

Defiance raged against acknowledging that McCoy might have been right; embarrassment burned at the idea of not being able to see past his own surface responses. Yet, at the core of it all, Kirk was surprised - so surprised that he had to physically _look_ at McCoy as the physician spoke, as if he couldn't believe the words without a visual confirmation. Or if not _believe_, at least sort of hear…and get annoyed.

But McCoy…McCoy wasn't even _looking_ at him. The physician's eyes focused straight ahead, occasionally flickering up at the turbolift ceiling, occasionally to the sides, but never directly at Kirk. However, Jim didn't feel as if McCoy was ignoring his presence, or that his CMO was avoiding eye contact and the inevitable conflict therein. No, McCoy was so attuned to Kirk's every level that he didn't_ need_ to look at Jim, to visually process the lines of tension, to meet Jim's eyes and search for traces of doubt. Kirk figured the physician probably didn't even need to be in the same damn_ lift_ – he had already heard Jim loud and clear before coming up to the Bridge, already knew what he wanted to say, what Jim didn't even know he was saying to _himself_.

Put McCoy out in the void of space, deprived of sight, sound, and touch, millions of light years away from the Enterprise…and he would still hear her every thought. The man just couldn't help but listen - did it as naturally as breathing - and didn't need to process another voice or see another face to truly _hear_ everything, to get to the core of those around him.

_Listen to that voice. _

Not to _me_, Jim.

Listen to your crew.

Listen to your_self_.

Kirk, quite metaphorically, clapped his hands over his ears.

But somehow, at some unknown point, he _did_ start to listen.

Because later, when McCoy came onto the Bridge after Balok's message, Kirk watched him. He saw the grip McCoy had on the turbolift, watched the physician's eyes briefly scan the room before locking on the viewscreen, unwavering blue as he moved to Jim's side. Saw McCoy's hand trail along the command chair, palm the railing, and land behind Kirk's back, just barely brushing the hem of his tunic, arms nearly touching.

And Kirk heard. Still needed his eyes too, but he _heard_. Heard the uncertainty, the fear, the panic at the sudden violent threat of mortality, the raw grounding need in the touch of familiar pulsing metal.

McCoy looked at him. Just a moment – a quick confirmation, an intuitive understanding that Jim needed to _see_ in order to _hear_.

And it all came together.

McCoy's actions, that brief look…..and Kirk heard the crew. He heard _their_ uncertainty, _their_ fear, _their_ panic as death loomed under the cold, alien voice of a form and a ship that those below decks had never seen. He heard hundreds of hands reaching for the familiar, a ground against the shock of a frightening new reality - heard it so clearly, he couldn't believe he hadn't heard it before.

Forgot that 430 expressions were written in the lines of his CMO's face.

430 emotions in those blue eyes.

430 voices spoken with a soft, Southern lilt.

…..Forgot that all he had to do was listen to _McCoy_.

The ship's humanity.

Jim suddenly remembered…and understood. McCoy, bless him, spoke anyway, the simple report seemingly irrelevant to anyone outside their silent conversation. But Kirk recognized the statement for what it was, heard the true, unspoken words behind McCoy's quiet voice: "Balok's message, it was heard all over the ship."

McCoy's eyes remained on the viewscreen as he went silent. But Jim had heard. Heard everything - McCoy's concern, the crew's needs, his own next step.

_Listen to that voice._

He gave McCoy a barely perceptible nod and strode to the command chair.

Balok's disembodied voice had threatened his crew. McCoy's voice had spoken for their emotions. And Kirk's inner voice told him exactly what he needed to do.

So he listened to that voice. With silent thanks for his CMO's voice, he toggled the comm and offered another - a voice of acknowledgement, of familiarity, of promise, and comfort. A voice that said, "I hear you."

_His_ voice.

Ship-wide communications blinked ready.

He took a breath.

"Captain to crew….."


	9. The Menagerie, Part 1

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "The Menagerie, Part 1." This piece focuses around one scene early on in the episode, where McCoy comes in on Kirk, who is watching Pike on a monitor, and trying to figure out why he keeps blinking 'no.' McCoy has a short, passionate speech where he begins with "blast medicine anyway!" and proceeds to vent his frustration on modern medicine's inability to treat brain injuries. The raw emotion in those words always touched me, and made me feel like McCoy had significant experience with those injuries. The idea for Elihu McDaniels' case was the first part of this chapter to come to me. His first name comes from the grave of a young child I saw in one of the old cemeteries I explore near my current home. The subject matter got a little heavy here, but that's apparently what McCoy needed to expand. Some dialogue between Kirk and McCoy is taken directly from the episode, so if it's recognizable from the scene, it's not mine! McCoy is credited for "The Menagerie, Part 2", but does not actually appear in the episode, a fact I just discovered (IMDB failed me!)…..but I will stick to my 76 episode plan and write a little something for him anyway as the next chapter :) Thank you for your continued support, and thank you to the reviewers I am unable to personally respond to via private message. I truly appreciate you reading!

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**9.**

Seven year old Elihu McDaniels was an artist. When Miss Jeffries told the class to go home and create a piece of art "through a bird's eyes", Elihu knew _exactly_ what he wanted to do. With a backpack full of painting supplies, he scaled the ancient oak tree on his grandparents' farm, right up to the half-bare branch where the birds always sang. He had seen paintings where people laid on the ground and looked up, through the darkened branches and fluttering leaves, capturing that shimmering veil against the blinding sun; but he had never seen a painting from a _true_ bird's eye view, from the bird's perch looking down the tree toward the ground…and _that_ was what he was going to paint. Elihu figured that the birds must have loved the view from that spot if they always sat there and sang. As he reached the branch, he noticed a tiny nest with three small eggs nestled under a tuft of leaves at the far end. Excited at the chance to paint the nest as well, he moved a little closer to get a better view.

The branch cracked.

The nest tipped.

And as Elihu reached desperately for the falling eggs, he joined them in their rapid descent. The eggs shattered thirty feet down on the exposed roots and packed earth.

So did Elihu.

McCoy was the pediatric surgeon on call that day. Several tense hours in the OR later, he sat across from Mrs. McDaniels as Elihu was moved to the pediatric ICU. He told her about the broken bones, the internal bleeding, the paralysis….and about their meticulous, successful repair. Then came the massive head trauma – stopping the bleeding, removing the bone fragments, repairing the skull, decreasing the swelling, temporarily supplementing the traumatized tissue with mechanical support for basic regulation; explaining the results of the cranial scans and the meaning of the overwhelmingly darkened areas – light after light shut off forever. And then came the question, the one he always dreaded, yet the one that never failed to amaze him, that he was part of such a deep, _human_ moment.

"Doctor, is he dying?"

McCoy swallowed back empathetic tears as his mind replaced Elihu's pale, distorted features with those of his own vibrant seven year old. He took Mrs. McDaniel's hand and broke the news, the single syllable a crushing exhalation.

"No."

And, Lord forgive him, he should have rejoiced in that word, at defying death's reach for a mother's son. The boy would live. But he would never be_ Elihu_ again. Sure, he would continue to breathe, his heart would continue to pump, his most basic reflexes would remain intact…but that was it. The brain stem was functional, but the majority of Elihu's brain, the areas that allowed him to excitedly chatter to his mother about school, to dream about starting his own art gallery, to run alongside their endlessly energetic Collie, to see and name the birds on the lawn, to hum his unique mix of old songs and spontaneous creations while painting under the sun…..they were all gone. So, yes, Elihu would live. Biologically. But would he live in any greater sense of the word? Was this truly life? McCoy had been able to treat every other physical injury, but the one that _truly_ mattered, the _brain_…he could do no more for _now_ than Elihu's great-ancestors could have done when that farm was first settled.

That night, McCoy went home, cursed modern medicine's lack of progress, hugged Johanna for a full five minutes, and banned her from ever climbing trees.

Thirteen years later, Johanna still honored that desperate, irrational order.

But modern medicine hadn't progressed.

A twenty year old Elihu McDaniels continued breathing, his heart continued pumping, his specialized bed, wheelchair, and medical staff provided him with medications to regulate what his body couldn't, with artificial nutrition for nourishment, with waste management, with therapies to prevent atrophy of muscles he couldn't consciously use, with prophylactic treatments and actions to stave off the effects of long term immobility on a body not meant for it. All while his mother looked into rolling eyes that could no longer focus or recognize, and wept for the death of the child breathing right in front of her.

And then came Christopher Pike.

And McCoy found himself ruminating anew on the continued relevance of his question from thirteen years ago.

_Was this truly life?_

* * *

Jim was subdued, deep in thought at the monitor, eyes only briefly shifting to McCoy's entrance before speaking. "He keeps blinking 'no.' 'No' to what?" The next question was quick, curious, confident in an answer that his first question may always lack…..yet with an almost hidden, heartbroken undercurrent in the stiff posture, the focused eyes. "How long will he live?" It wasn't a question of whether Pike was dying…..directly. _In_directly…..

McCoy's own heartbreak was palpable in the sighed response. "As long as any of us." He thought back to Elihu, to countless others whose families suffered at modern medicine's inability to advance in the one area that truly mattered; how this case was even _worse_, because while Elihu's higher brain function was gone, Pike's was still intact…..and the fact that they _knew_ that, could get a wheelchair to move at his command, could create a 'yes/no' response system, but _still_ couldn't access anything deeper…the frustration exploded. "_Blast_ medicine anyway. We've learned to tie into every human organ in the body except one. The brain. And the brain is what life is all about. Now, that man can think any thought that we can. Love, hope, _dream_ as much as we can, but he can't reach out, and no one can reach in!"

Jim's voice was soft, sad, uncomprehending. Ever the leader searching for a solution, he repeated, desperate to understand, "He keeps blinking 'no.'"

McCoy echoed the second half of Jim's earlier question, "No to _what_?" But even as he said those words, even as the same nagging gut feeling Kirk was about to propose, the one McCoy was about to vehemently deny on both emotional and genetic grounds, churned his insides, McCoy's mind choked on the sudden, obvious answer.

"'_No' to what?"_

He thought of Elihu. Of Mrs. McDaniels. Of hundreds of similar cases throughout his career. Of hundreds of cases he had yet to see.

"'_No' to what?"_

Honestly, what was there for the poor devil to _not_ say 'no' to?

'No' to the moment that baffle plate ruptured. 'No' to the deaths of the cadets he couldn't save. 'No' to the very existence of delta rays. 'No' to what that radiation took from him. 'No' to the embarrassing, uncomfortable treatments he experienced daily. 'No' to how everyone suddenly spoke to him, not as a Fleet Captain, but as someone to be pitied, or worse, as someone who didn't understand - a child. 'No' to the complete lack of control over anything that now happened in his life. 'No' to a fully active mind having to express itself solely within the confines of 'yes' or 'no' responses, the ability to ask questions, to share insights, cruelly torn away by an invisible enemy.

And McCoy had the sinking, knowing feeling that, while in this moment, the 'no' was likely related to the Enterprise's presence…that the continued 'no's' seen in the earlier record tapes since Pike's accident went much deeper.

"_They could question him for days, weeks, before stumbling upon the right thing."_

"_He keeps blinking 'no.'"_

Because they haven't stumbled upon the right question.

Because that one question was the one nobody in medicine, completely trained against the very thought, had the guts to ask.

The one McCoy silently asked thirteen years ago at the bedside of a living child surrounded by mourners.

_Was this truly life?_

Biologically, the answer was 'yes.' Ethically, which Pike's brain was still fully capable of debating and processing, the answer could very well be 'no.'

His physician would then be obligated to discuss termination of treatment based on lack of quality of life, to provide comprehensive education on exactly what would happen if Pike elected that option. McCoy wondered if anyone had ever asked Pike, since the implementation of his answering system, if he _wanted_ any of his daily treatments. Not just the choice of whether he wanted something done now or later, but if he wanted them done at _all_. If he wanted to continue like this in the hope of a cure coming along modern medicine's advancing horizon, or to let nature take its course as it _would_ have before this moment in history.

The physician would have to clarify, beyond any doubt, a shift from 'no' to 'yes.' Would have to ask, "Do you understand that you will die without these treatments?" All while inwardly panicking, as the importance of honoring patient choice grated against the deep- seated training to prevent death at all costs.

And there would be no nonverbal cues in the expressionless face, no restlessness to denote uncertainty, no specific follow-up questions….just the simple, clearly objective response of a single flash of light, a solid mechanical sound. There could be no doubt if the answer was 'yes.'

That their patient was choosing death.

And the panic would surge, their own uncertainty drowning years of training and practice, ethics churning with oaths in the storms of their mind; feeling that they lost the battle even as the general declared victory in his final order. There would be no going back.

And that's why Pike's medical team didn't ask, why they _wouldn't_ ask that 'right' question, even if they knew what it was.

Let him keep blinking 'no.'

Because if they asked…..if they offered death as an option…

Their own medical training would compel them to blink 'no.'

But McCoy's gut suddenly realized that, given the opportunity, Pike, like Elihu had he been blessed with continued cognizance as he aged, would be just as compelled to choose differently.

Because Fleet Captain Pike was a man of action. A man with a fully capable, reasoning mind. A man who, when asked if this was truly life, may say 'no.' And a man who, given the choice to let life take its natural course, to explore that new, unknown frontier as the explorer he had always been, might take it.

And blink 'yes.'


	10. The Menagerie, Part 2

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "The Menagerie, Part 2." As noted in the previous chapter, McCoy does not actually appear in this episode, but as he is credited, I tackled it anyway. It turned out to be a nice opportunity to expand on something I noticed in the first part of the arc. In "The Menagerie, Part 1", when Kirk suggests to McCoy that Spock may have lied to get them to Starbase 11 to see Pike, I was always struck by how passionately McCoy defends Spock as a Vulcan. With all the teasing those three do regarding each other's natures, especially how McCoy often comments on Spock and his human side, I found this intriguing…..and it's _Kirk_, not McCoy, at the end of Part 2, that teases Spock about his "emotionalism." I wanted to explore those moments further. I could see Kirk going to McCoy for a drink and conversation after speaking privately with Spock, and so that became the springboard for McCoy's inner dialogue regarding his relationship with Spock, and for his final musing on Pike's choice, as related to the previous chapter of this story. Thank you for your continued support, and thank you to the reviewers I am unable to personally respond to via private message. I truly appreciate you reading!

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_McCoy: "Jim, forgetting how well we both know Spock, the simple fact that he's a Vulcan means he's incapable of telling a lie."_

_Kirk: "He's also half-human."_

_McCoy: That half is completely submerged! To be caught acting like us or even thinking like us would completely embarrass him."_

_McCoy: "Me, yes. I could run off half-cocked given a good reason. So could you. But not Spock." ~ The Menagerie, Part 1_

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**10. **

"I'm telling you Bones, when Chris blinked 'yes' to the Talosians' offer, it was like…. his whole body relaxed, and I saw _him_ again. Saw what Spock never forgot," Kirk sobered briefly with that thought, staring down into his glass, swirling the amber liquid momentarily before reanimating. "I wish you could have seen it," he sighed, eyes lighting in remembrance. "He looked like he had never left Talos IV. Strong, whole, and with a pretty woman." Kirk grinned. "He's a lucky man."

McCoy nodded. "Yes, he is," he agreed, thoughts touching regretfully on patients long past.

"All thanks to one stubborn Vulcan and his _not_-so-submerged human side," Kirk raised a pointed eyebrow at McCoy, a half-smirk on his face. He took another swallow of bourbon. "You know, he _still_ insists this whole thing had nothing to do with emotion - that it was the only _logical_ course of action after Chris's accident." He looked expectantly at McCoy.

"I don't know, Jim," McCoy admitted, a hint of sheepishness in the otherwise clinical expression. "I mean, as much as I'd normally love to tease him 'bout something like this, Spock's got a point. Sure, there's no denyin' there's something else there – whether you call it human devotion or Vulcan loyalty doesn't make much difference - but this whole thing he came up with?" McCoy waved his hand in a wide arc. "It's hard to come up with something _that_ perfectly detailed in the throes of human emotion," McCoy chuckled softly. "I mean, he had _everything_ covered – I know_ I_ couldn't be that thorough," his eyes darkened briefly in memory.

Kirk's eyes widened. "Bones, are you saying…." He gasped in teasing surprise.

McCoy sighed, throwing him a look. "That I agree with Spock? That what he did really _was_ the logical thing to do in this case? Yeah, I guess so," he said honestly.

Kirk was half mocked shock and half childish grin.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't look so surprised, Jim. Spock and I _do_ agree on occasion – usually when_ you're_ bein' a damn fool."

Kirk opened his mouth to argue, but shut it promptly, realizing he really didn't have an argument.

McCoy grinned briefly before narrowing his eyes into his 'sickbay glare.' "But since this isn't about you this time…..if you bring this up to Spock, I'll cite the alcohol and your poor hearing. Probably have to insist on another physical."

Kirk almost choked on his drink. "Bones," he raised an eyebrow inquiringly, "was that a threat?"

"Nonsense," McCoy swirled his glass. "I'm a doctor. Doctors don't make threats."

"Then what do you call the last time I was in here and you….."

"Creative education," McCoy interrupted firmly around another swallow of bourbon.

Kirk sputtered a laugh, then glanced at the chronometer with a sigh. He leaned forward and held up his glass. "To Chris Pike. May we all find our way as pleasant."

"I'll drink to that," McCoy smiled softly, touching glasses and draining the last of the liquid with Kirk.

Kirk stood with a groan. "Thanks for the drink, Bones. And the conversation," he amended with a grin.

"You're welcome. Now, get – _some_ of us have work to do," McCoy motioned toward sickbay's main room where Christine Chapel was leading a crewman to a diagnostic bed.

McCoy warmed at Kirk's easy chuckle as the younger man headed out the door, stopping by the biobed to check on the crewman, where he offered a smile and shoulder pat before heading for the Bridge. The monitors were chiming within normal limits, Christine was calmly moving about her routine, and there were no shouts for crash carts. Satisfied that he wasn't immediately needed, McCoy leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

It had been a stressful stretch. As much as McCoy had just joked with Jim to cheer him up, it wasn't his primary rationale. McCoy may have argued earlier that Spock, by virtue of being Vulcan, was incapable of telling a lie, but McCoy was no Vulcan. And it wasn't so much a lie, as it was a doctor's conscious decision to make himself look bad in order to fulfill a commitment to a patient. To a friend.

McCoy, admittedly, enjoyed teasing Spock about his human side, just as Spock, not so admittedly, enjoyed the banter. However, there was a time and a place. McCoy knew how important Spock's Vulcan heritage and intellectual commitment was, and he _refused_ to shake Spock's very identity in cases where it truly mattered.

Like on Starbase 11. Where this all began.

Jim had several valid points when he questioned Spock's story early on after seeing Pike, but McCoy persisted in his vehement support of Spock's Vulcan nature, of his deep embarrassment regarding his humanity, of the impossibility of considering Spock would or _could_ depart from the identity he strove so hard to project and maintain. McCoy knew damn well it was pure human devotion and emotion that drove Spock to do this for Pike. He could cite a dozen supporting moments: the hint of regret mixed with sadness and overwhelming trust as Spock looked at McCoy in sickbay after playing Jim's fake message about taking care of Pike; the raised eyebrows and, _blast_ him, _amused_ expression on Spock's face after he presented himself for arrest - even in the seriousness of the moment, still enjoying McCoy's obvious discomfort in commanding security; the pure anguish on Spock's face as McCoy wheeled Pike out of the court martial proceedings and Spock was left alone with a silent Kirk, waves of emotion rolling off the stiff posture at the pull between devotion to Pike and his plan and devotion to Kirk and the threat of losing Jim's friendship and respect; the quiet admission that he thought something might be wrong with Pike after the Talosians stopped the transmission due to his fatigue, and the combination of distress and gratitude in his eyes when McCoy diagnosed severe hypotension and began treating Pike accordingly.

The truth was, Spock ran off half-cocked, as McCoy, Jim, or any human could, given a good reason. Because he _had_ a good reason. The life of his former commander and friend. It was a brilliantly logical plan forged in the heat of humanity.

Spock insisted it was pure Vulcan logic. And McCoy wasn't going to call him out on it, because the end result would still be the same and _that_ was what mattered. He was a physician, an advocate, and while he might not agree with Spock's self-assessment, he wasn't about to tear down a man's identity if there wasn't a damn good clinical reason. So he ate a little crow today and let Spock keep his logic.

McCoy poured a little more into the empty glass and raised it in a final, silent toast. To Spock. He took one swallow for the Vulcan he would defend and the last for the human he would overlook, even in his gratitude.

The human who ran off half-cocked and gave Chris Pike something modern medicine couldn't.

A choice.

Where 'yes' brought life.


	11. The Conscience of the King

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "The Conscience of the King." I must admit, after the first viewing I had no_ idea_ what I was going to write about. I couldn't stand Kirk's scenes with Lenore, and felt that McCoy's character was kind of "off" for much of the episode. Finally, it was the scene where Spock insisted that Riley must survive that struck me. It bothered me that Spock basically told McCoy to save Riley because Kirk would be next on the list. Although Spock probably didn't meant it that way, and he did show concern for Riley when Kirk demoted him without explanation, it just felt like Riley's condition was only there to lead us back to Kirk's situation. So, I began to wonder about Riley and the resolution of his own traumatic experience – how he listened to his commanding officer and handed over the phaser, but was never heard from again in the episode. I could see McCoy feeling guilty about logging his report so that Riley overheard that Karidian could be Kodos (clumsily written – makes McCoy look like an idiot, but was obviously used to further the plot). And I could see Spock, having gone to McCoy with his research and concerns during the episode, being the catalyst here for revealing how McCoy treated Riley. This takes place before the final tag on the Bridge. Nurse Mara is an original character from my other stories. McCoy's toast at the end is paraphrased from Kirk's dialogue in the episode. I hope I did the characters credit. Thank you for your continued support, and thank you to the reviewers I am unable to personally respond to via private message. I truly appreciate you reading!

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**11. **

"Spock to McCoy."

Christine glanced up from Lenore Karidian's monitor and reached for the comm. "Sickbay, this is Chapel."

A pause. "Nurse Chapel," Spock acknowledged, audibly surprised to hear her voice. "Is Dr. McCoy unavailable?"

"He's in a procedure and asked not to be disturbed." She could almost _hear_ Spock's eyebrow rise – and understandably. McCoy had been known to answer comms from the OR while on his fifteenth straight hour of trauma surgery.

"I see," Spock intoned, clearly working through every possible permutation of her words. "In that case, would you please ask Lt. Riley to report to the Captain's quarters?"

"I'll send him as soon as Dr. McCoy is finished with him," Christine promised.

Another pause. "Has the Lieutenant's health declined? It was my understanding that he was medically cleared prior to the Captain's order that he remain in sickbay."

Christine sighed, cursing herself for that choice of wording. She would have come to the same conclusion. "Riley is fine, Mr. Spock," she assured him, smiling softly at Spock's understated concern.

A breath. "Then I do not understand….."

Christine heard Mara chuckle from outside the door as Christine rolled her eyes, took a breath of her own, and interrupted the ship's second in command as respectfully as she could. "Mr. Spock, I will send the Lieutenant to the Captain's quarters when Dr. McCoy releases him. If you require any further information, I would be happy to discuss it with you in sickbay at your convenience."

Mara bit her lip, eyes dancing as she leaned around the doorframe.

"Of course. Thank you, nurse," Spock signed off.

Christine blew out a breath.

Mara grinned. "What's the matter? Didn't want to broadcast Riley's medical status and McCoy's treatment plan to the whole Bridge?" she teased.

Christine shook her head ruefully. "I know there are no secrets on a starship, but really, you'd think a Vulcan would at least _consider _the logic of confidentiality."

"You realize he's probably on his way down here right now," Mara pointed out.

"Probably? Try definitely," Christine scoffed, glancing up at the chronometer. "You have a few minutes to monitor Miss Karidian for me when he gets here?"

"Yeah," Mara nodded. "She's basically just a one-to-one now, right? Vitals are stable, she's handling the sedative well?"

"Yes on all accounts," Christine confirmed.

"No problem. If any injuries show up while you're running interference, I'll just have one of the orderlies take over," Mara said.

"Thanks, Mar," Christine smiled.

The sickbay doors opened.

"Well, that's my cue," Mara grinned, moving into the room to take Christine's place.

Christine stood up with a good-natured sigh and headed for the main sickbay.

Spock paused several steps from the doors at Christine's arrival. "Nurse Chapel," he greeted, tilting his head slightly to the right.

"Mr. Spock," Christine nodded in response, gesturing toward the nurse's desk. She gratefully took a seat as Spock, predictably, chose to remain standing.

"How is Miss Karidian?" Spock began, rocking slightly on his heels, hands in a loose backward clasp, trying not to pace as his mind moved through the upcoming conversation. Christine couldn't help but notice the restraint – she had always found his frequent tendency to pace while thinking to be one of his most human traits.

"Resting comfortably," Christine gave the standard report. "Dr. McCoy completed the initial evaluation and he's already spoken to the Benecia clinic's psychiatrist. She'll be transferred to a larger facility from there."

"Then he is overseeing Karidian's autopsy," Spock ascertained.

"Actually, Dr. McCoy is performing the autopsy himself," Christine corrected.

Spock's eyebrows shot up briefly before furrowing in analysis. "I thought Dr. Sanchez handled the majority of the autopsy cases, particularly those of non-crew members," he recalled.

"Usually, he does," Christine confirmed, "but Dr. McCoy wanted to do this one."

"So then Lt. Riley is _also_ attending the autopsy," Spock reasoned from their earlier conversation.

"Right," she nodded.

Spock shook his head. "I do not understand. The Lieutenant has no medical training. He is not suited to assist such procedures."

"Maybe Dr. McCoy didn't need an assistant," Christine offered softly, watching Spock's face for understanding.

Instead, he looked almost…..frustrated. "Then the Lieutenant's presence is highly illogical," Spock insisted. "Such action serves no practical purpose. It is not medically necessary…."

"If it's all the same to you, Mr. Spock, _I'll _be the one to determine what's logical and medically necessary in _my_ sickbay," McCoy's voice interrupted as he and Riley came down the back hall.

Spock inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Doctor, the Captain requests the Lieutenant's presence in his quarters if he is still eligible for discharge."

McCoy felt the young man tense. "Easy, Riley," he murmured. McCoy looked back to Spock, eyes narrowed in what Christine recognized as his 'someone better not be fixin' to mess with my patient' glare. "Might we be safe in assuming that this meeting will involve Riley's reinstatement to the Bridge?" he asked pointedly.

"I cannot speak for the Captain's intentions – he simply requested that I inform Lt. Riley of the meeting. However," Spock's eyes twinkled, finding McCoy's with comfortable camaraderie, "the Captain was highly impressed with the Lieutenant's professionalism in the face of personal crisis today and wishes to extend his gratitude and offer…._insight_….into the Lieutenant's altered assignment."

"What he _means_, is that the Captain's gonna apologize," McCoy leaned over and stage-whispered to Riley.

"I did not say that, Doctor," Spock corrected.

"Well, _I_ did," McCoy bounced lightly on his toes, sharing a grin with Riley.

Riley smiled, the tension melting. "Should I go now, Mr. Spock?" he asked.

With Spock's nod, Riley turned back to McCoy. "Thanks, Doc," he said sincerely. "And I'm sorry again, I didn't…."

McCoy held up a hand. "What did I tell you about apologizing?" he insisted. He sighed heavily. "Now, I might not agree with _how_ the Captain did it, but he meant well by what he did. It was my own fault for not logging the report in my office. While you needed to know,_ that_ wasn't the way it should have happened. For that, _I'm_ sorry."

Riley froze, stunned at McCoy's words. But something in McCoy's eyes finally made him dip his head, accepting the apology.

McCoy smiled sadly. "Good," he nodded. The sadness faded as he defaulted back to passionate compassion. "Now, remember what we talked about. You know where to find me."

"Yes sir. Thank you." Riley held McCoy's gaze for several seconds, a world of unspoken emotion, before looking away shyly.

"And Mara and I know where to find _you_," Christine threatened under sparkling eyes, "if you don't follow those instructions."

"Yes ma'am!" Riley had the good sense to look nervous as he snapped to attention.

Christine laughed. "Come on, Riley, I'll walk you out," she smiled, catching McCoy's grateful eyes briefly, before leading the young man to the main doors.

McCoy watched, bemused, as Spock's gaze followed the officers until they were gone, before turning purposefully back to McCoy.

"What's on your mind Spock?" McCoy asked.

"Relieving Dr. Sanchez of his primary function as ship's medical examiner and performing Karidian's autopsy with the assistance of non-medical personnel is highly irregular," Spock immediately launched into his observation.

"Well, at least it wasn't 'illogical,'" McCoy muttered, ignoring Spock's look before moving on. "First of all, I didn't need an _assistant_. Karidian's death was witnessed – we knew a phaser blast killed him, so the autopsy was really just protocol to transfer the body off-ship. Any other findings would be purely incidental. Secondly, Sanchez is an excellent medical examiner, but he's just not comfortable with people observing his procedures. I wanted Riley to be there, so I offered to do the autopsy myself. Made sense all around."

"I still do not - " Spock started.

"You said it yourself, Spock – there never _was_ a positive ID on Kodos' body on Tarsus IV. Twenty years ago, Riley saw his parents' murderer and was told that a charred body that was most_ likely_ Kodos meant he should put it all to rest. He sees that same face today, and what? He's just supposed to take our word for it that the man is dead? In a sort of macabre way, Jim was lucky. He _saw_ Kodos' death – saw the phaser hit, checked the body. Riley had already been sent back to me at that point, and physiologically, sure, he was still fine, but psychologically? The boy was a mess. He needed to see Kodos' body just as much as Jim did, to get that closure. I offered Riley a chance to observe the autopsy and he stayed for the whole thing – watched as every body system was analyzed and confirmed nonfunctioning. Way _I_ figure, that's a hell of a lot more effective than throwing sleeping pills and psych consults at the boy. Not to say he won't need those too, but they'll be a lot more useful now that he's had physical confirmation."

Spock was silent for a moment. "Indeed," his eyes radiated respect. "An irregular, yet….. inspired decision."

"Well, we're an irregular crew leading an irregular life," McCoy shrugged. "What kind of physician would I be to ignore that?"

"You would not be McCoy," Spock said simply.

McCoy flushed at the sincerity in Spock's eyes and ducked his own under the rare praise. "You know," he cleared his throat, "I'm moving the body down to the morgue until we get to Benecia, but the same offer stands for Jim, if you think it'd help."

"I believe, as you stated, that the Captain had his closure," Spock said, "however, your assessment as Chief Medical Officer would be most accurate."

"I don't know," McCoy smiled, "you've been pretty accurate where Jim's concerned since this whole thing started."

It was Spock's turn to look uncomfortable.

"Logic, intuition, persistence, _whatever_ you want to call it….you really pulled Jim through this – saw stuff I couldn't. So, thanks for helpin' me do _my_ job."

"I didn't - "

"You focused on Jim so I could focus on Riley," McCoy insisted. He saw Spock's reluctance and sighed. "Fine – if you won't accept my thanks, then you'll at _least_ accept a drink."

Spock sighed. "Doctor, we have already been through this…."

McCoy fixed him with a look. "Mr. Spock, I'm an old, country doctah," he drawled. "If you think I got through rural practice without bein' able to fix a decent cup of tea….."

Spock's face lightened. "Tea would be most appreciated."

McCoy grinned. "Good, follow me."

Fifteen minutes later, settled in his office, McCoy raised his teacup. "To all those affected by Tarsus IV," he offered the toast. "May both the dead, _and_ the living, rest easier."

"And may history cease to repeat such tragedy," Spock added.

They both knew it wouldn't happen.

But Spock had still said it.

So McCoy lifted the teacup to his lips in soft solidarity.

"Amen."


	12. Balance of Terror

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: "Balance of Terror." Otherwise known as the "Spock encounters bigotry" episode - but that's not what caught my attention. In perhaps the most ridiculous bit of minutiae yet, this chapter is based off of one second of wordless action on screen. When the red alert is called during the opening wedding scene, Kirk and Scotty go to the comm. At 1:58 on the DVD, Scotty moves away, heading to Engineering and, in the background, you can see McCoy standing near the wall with his head bowed. By 1:59, he raises his head and starts walking out of the chapel. When you watch Angela Martine, the bride-to-be, during the first scene, she enters the chapel, kneels, bows her head, gives a little nod, and gets back up. At the very end of the episode, when Kirk comes to see her in the chapel after Tomlinson dies, she is already kneeling – and before she gets up, she bows her head and gives a little nod. Putting that together with McCoy's occasional verbalizations of faith (as in his reply of "Amen to that" to Kirk's hope that McCoy's services wouldn't be needed after the decision to attack the Romulan ship), this piece became a connection between McCoy and Angela, and a study of his own interest in individual "protocols." I also needed to at least _try _and explore some reason for Tomlinson dying while Stiles looked fine despite the fact that they were both in the gas-filled phaser room for the same amount of time, so that found its way here too. I hope I did the characters credit. Thank you for your continued support, and thank you to the reviewers I am unable to personally respond to via private message. I truly appreciate you reading!

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**12.**

Despite his passionate outbursts and frequent need to throw convention to the wind, Leonard McCoy had lived most of his adult life by protocol. He started with the substantial world of medical protocol, where everything was an algorithm, an expected sequence of action and stepped approach. It was drilled into him until it was second nature, a way to ensure diagnostic and treatment uniformity, to lead toward answers in a logical, scientific manner. When he joined Starfleet, McCoy simply added another set of protocols, and another set of paperwork, to his long experience. And while he understood and appreciated the logic, comfort, and sense inherent in both of those organizational and field-specific protocols, McCoy had always found himself more fascinated with the _personal _protocols that they brought to light. How, even while following established guidelines, everyone still brought some unique part of themselves to the pattern and wove it into the rote steps.

McCoy had been down in phaser control once, several months ago, tending to an unconscious lieutenant, when a red alert sounded. He saw Angela Martine and Robert Tomlinson look to each other, something wordless passing between their eyes in a comfortable, practiced moment as they moved to their stations. He then saw Angela, even as her hands were moving through the diagnostics, bow her head briefly, her lips moving silently before she nodded slowly, looked back up and answered the Bridge's status call with crisp military precision. McCoy remembered noticing Angela's action, even through his own drilled responses, because it was obviously routine – a silent spiritual moment seamlessly integrated into the bustle of unknown danger and the familiarity of regulation.

And because he recognized those soundless words.

"_Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…."_

McCoy came from a long line of devout Southern Christians and even though his medical career had often shaken his faith, he never lost that core. The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi was very similar to his Hippocratic Oath - a personal, nonmedical mantra, and one he held in equal regard.

The words were bittersweet – a prayer of peace over hands that readied weapons. But no less than the prayer of a physician who prayed his own purpose would become obsolete.

The same prayer McCoy silently offered with every red alert.

His protocol.

Some people had different protocols for different situations. Christine, for instance, would reach back and lightly touch her hair clip as she started emergency protocol for incoming away team casualties. But with on-ship injuries, she would briefly touch her left thigh, covering the motion by smoothing down her uniform, as she launched into action. Others, like Angela, kept the same protocol for all situations, good and bad. As she walked into the chapel on her wedding day, she immediately knelt at the altar and bowed her head. Her lips didn't move this time before she nodded briefly and stood to begin her new life. McCoy had always wondered about these little differences between people – those individual moments of personal experience and psychological wiring poking through regimented activity. The scientist ached to study them further, but the humanity always won out – the understanding and compassion that people should have something that was private and theirs alone, and that the beauty of life was in _not_ quantifying every aspect of it.

So, he observed. Because he couldn't _not_ see.

Couldn't miss how, when the red alert sounded, Angela and Tomlinson looked to each other, their lives long since one in that shared protocol.

And couldn't miss his own natural response. Because as Scotty bolted to his engine room and the room began to scatter in drilled response, McCoy remained against the wall. He bowed his head silently, offering a prayer to both the God of his upbringing and the benevolence of all those beings and beliefs that had comforted patients past:

Please don't need my skills. Please watch over everyone. Please let life prevail. And _should_ my skills be called upon, let me honor the lives under my hands, to whatever end.

McCoy raised his head on the echo of a silent "amen" and found that, for several seconds, it was just himself, Angela, and Tomlinson in the vacant chapel. He felt Tomlinson's fleeting gaze before procedure kicked in and broke the moment - McCoy striding with subdued purpose toward sickbay and Tomlinson grabbing Angela's hand as they rushed to their station.

Several tense hours later, a relieved McCoy was telling Jim that it could have been much, much worse. And it was the truth. Twenty-two radiation burns kept him and his staff busy, but ended with twenty-two living, convalescing crewmembers.

Then Spock stumbled in with Tomlinson and a choked report that he was going back for an injured Stiles whom he had temporarily dragged to safety.

And relief became a memory.

Tomlinson was already dead. But they began resuscitation protocol anyway because that's what you did when you didn't know how long someone had been down and Spock was already gone. They got Tomlinson's heart beating just in time for it to stop again. McCoy was barking orders for full life support as he rushed back to the doors and helped relieve a greener-than-usual Spock of an unconscious Stiles. With Christine attending to Tomlinson, McCoy and Mara performed the second resuscitation of the evening as Spock filled them in.

Phaser coolant leak. Tomlinson pulseless when Spock got there. Stiles breathing as of twenty seconds ago.

They got Stiles back quickly and were stabilizing him when Christine's raw voice reported the results of Tomlinson's cranial scan.

Complete brain death.

McCoy bowed his head as Christine called Angela to sickbay. He offered a silent prayer for strength to inform a young woman she was a widow before ever being a wife, and then got back to Stiles.

When she arrived, McCoy left Stiles under Mara's watchful eye and went to Angela's side. He held steady as she choked back a sob and threw her arms around him, the grief vibrating through both of them with McCoy's words. Watched her look at Tomlinson's half-open eyes just as she always had, then bow her head, swallow hard, and nod her agreement to withdraw the machinery. Felt his heart break as she lay her ear to the boy's chest, eyes closed as she absorbed the last erratic beats of the freed heart, and saw the shudder as she heard it stop. All McCoy wanted to do was sit with her in her grief, to celebrate a life she had loved so deeply.

But Mara's sharp curse and a monitor's scream pulled him back to a de-satting Stiles.

Fifteen minutes later, he was glaring up at Stiles' monitor when he saw Angela ghost her fingers over Tomlinson's mottled hand, bow her head, and with a slow, mournful nod, tears dripping in silent grief, walk out of the room. But she caught McCoy's eyes briefly on the way, and even through the rush of hypoxic protocol, he knew exactly where she was going.

McCoy bowed his head with a silent prayer that she find some comfort there, and went back to cursing Stiles' lung function. By the time Jim came down for a report, Stiles was stable and McCoy was able to send Jim where he needed to be.

The night grew longer.

After assisting with post-mortem care on Tomlinson, checking on a still somewhat subdued Spock, and sharing a drink with a shaken Jim Kirk who couldn't understand how Angela could say she was all right and _mean_ it while Jim's own grief raged, McCoy found himself being drawn to the chapel. Memories of quiet, incense infused hospital chapels melded with those of makeshift off-world altars; of charred crosses formed from the burnt remains of native homes; broken hyposprays worn to uselessness through repeated, desperate inoculation bound into the symbol of his faith with strips of plastiskin…..of the raw need for peace, silent tears, and a resounding "why", even as he knew he could never bear the answer.

The chapel was dark, embracing the shadow kneeling at the altar. He turned to leave, intimate with that sanctity, when three soft words drew him back.

"Please, come in."

McCoy slowly crossed the room and knelt at her side.

Angela turned and looked at him, clouded eyes searching his face for one fleeting moment before finding what she needed. And as she smiled wistfully under drying tear tracks, McCoy realized what she saw. A connection. "Will you pray with me?" she asked, a tinge of nervousness under the hopeful tone.

McCoy was no minister, but that wasn't what she was asking. "Of course," he replied, voice wavering with the memories of sacred words shared under dimmed hospital lights and skies newly devoid of stars.

Angela's lip quivered under the relief that washed over her face. She turned back to the altar, bowed her head, and began to speak.

McCoy's eyes widened. She looked back up at his silence and brightened, just for a moment, at his surprise. "I find it more comforting," she explained shyly. "Do you know it?"

McCoy's old-fashioned reputation went far beyond his medical practices alone. "Yes I do," he said. "Although my pronunciation generally leaves somethin' to be desiahd," he exaggerated his drawl, blue eyes sparkling under deep emotion.

Angela laughed, bright and clear, before a sudden sob stole her breath. Swallowing hard, she looked up. "He won't mind," she decided, certain under her grief.

They met each other's eyes. He wasn't Tomlinson, never would be. But that's not what this was about. And she wasn't looking for understanding, for reasons why this had happened.

She was seeking someone who understood what she needed to do.

Her comfort. Her protocol.

_Their_ protocol.

McCoy nodded silently and turned to face the altar. Together, they bowed their heads and began to pray.

"Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…"

* * *

Notes:

- I had forgotten all about The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi until I suddenly found myself typing that line in this story. When I went back to double-check the wording, I realized how incredibly _McCoy_ it was, and could see him identifying with it and holding himself to that standard. The full text is as follows:

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.  
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;  
where there is injury, pardon;  
where there is doubt, faith;  
where there is despair, hope;  
where there is darkness, light;  
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek  
to be consoled as to console;  
to be understood as to understand;  
to be loved as to love.  
For it is in giving that we receive;  
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;  
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen"

- "De-satting" refers to a patient's oxygen saturation (detailing the percentage of oxygen available on their hemoglobin) dropping.

- Toward the end of this piece, I've expanded on the brief reference in "Friday's Child" to McCoy having been part of a traveling medical relief team.

- The last line is the first part of the Lord's Prayer in Latin ("Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name"). I cross-referenced it with several online sources, but did not double-check the translation myself. My apologies if there are any inaccuracies.


	13. Shore Leave

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: Well, it's been quite awhile since I worked on this collection! After watching "Shore Leave" again, I found myself focusing on the nonverbal responses in Kirk and Spock's faces when McCoy is killed by the knight. I decided to scrap my initial idea for this episode and focus on analyzing that emotion instead, using Yeoman Barrows as a POV. I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your support.

* * *

**13. **

The planet caretaker's influence was vast - for the duration of her shore leave, Yeoman Barrows had nothing but pleasant dreams.

It was when she returned to the Enterprise that the nightmares began, vivid details lost in shock's cocoon coming to viscerally sharp light.

It took all the strength she had to be able to look at Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, or even Dr. McCoy, without completely breaking down.

Because every time she closed her eyes, every time she saw _them_, she saw it all.

She saw the Captain looking up from Dr. McCoy's body at her hushed "he's dead", the words making it suddenly, inescapably real. Saw him look out at the distance to some point beyond Mr. Spock's left – perhaps to the horizon he chased, perhaps to the place McCoy should have been, looking for guidance when stripped of the man he'd go to for it. His face was empty shock muting blossoming grief, overshadowed by a world-shattering nausea that pinched his face as it turned his stomach – _this can't be happening, not here, not Bones_. Questions of command and personal loss ran with startling clarity under the sickened surface: _What do we do now?_ _What do__** I**__ do now?_

She saw Mr. Spock look up from across McCoy's body, shadowed eyes drawn directly to the Captain's. There was no Vulcan in that face – only human disbelief and shocked grief behind eyes bright with a fine sheen of unshed tears as he looked to his Captain, his friend: _How could this happen?_ W_hat do we do now?_

The Captain's head moved toward Mr. Spock, the sluggishness of grief slowing the instinctive response to the unspoken questions, the silent need. The sick feeling never left his face. _I don't know_.

She saw where Mr. Spock had shifted, kneeling in somber guard at McCoy's head, the Captain a constant at McCoy's side. It reminded her in some ways of the doctor's old-fashioned CPR lessons to crewmembers for cases where modern technology wasn't available. Their patient may have been beyond saving, yet there was Mr. Spock at the head to give breaths, Captain Kirk at the side of the chest to do compressions. The logical Vulcan at the physician's scientific, medical mind; the emotional, human Captain at McCoy's compassionate heart.

She recalled how, when Mr. Sulu called for the Captain to inspect the fallen black knight, Mr. Spock stayed behind without a word, respectfully standing guard over McCoy's body. When the Captain then called for Mr. Spock's analysis, Mr. Sulu immediately changed places with Mr. Spock, maintaining the position. Ensuring McCoy would be brought home.

They were granted a happy ending this time. Everyone survived. There were no coffins, no words of remembrance. No empty stations and mess hall tables. No new faces struggling for acceptance in the void left behind.

But when she closed her eyes, when she saw the Captain and Mr. Spock alone on the Bridge, all she could see was their faces in the breath after McCoy's last. And it was all she could do not to sink to her knees with the weight of memory and sob a confession she prayed would never truly come to pass.

"_It's my fault."_


	14. The Galileo Seven

Title: Asclepius Revisited

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Star Trek TOS

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: 76 McCoy episodes. 76 McCoy-centric reflections, codas, and missing scenes.

Notes: Thank you for all the kind reviews of the previous chapter! There's a brief scene near the end of "The Galileo Seven" that really grabbed my attention upon re-watch. It's a few lines of dialogue between McCoy and Spock just before the shuttle is about to burn back up in the atmosphere after Spock's last-ditch rescue effort. There's such peace in McCoy's demeanor, such a wealth of emotion and history in their interaction, even as they don't face one another. I found myself immediately writing this piece before even finishing the last few minutes of the episode. Dialogue quoted in this chapter is from the episode and does not belong to me. I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading. I truly appreciate your support.

* * *

**14.**

It was Scotty, bless him, who put it all together, giving voice to what Spock - both in the action and its aftermath - could not: a last-ditch distress signal, like sending up a flare. A good gamble, indeed.

And now, ten seconds to atmosphere.

No need to worry about burials anymore, not the way they were going. Yet McCoy, for all his old country doctor earthiness, had always found some comfort in the concept of 'dust to dust', in his individual elements being repurposed to create innumerable new life. Did he want to die today, like this? Not particularly. But McCoy and death were far from strangers and so, despite everything that had happened on the planet, he could honestly say he was at peace. The Vulcan half of Spock would find death a logical part of life, his impending end the equally logical result of a decaying orbit. But in their last few seconds of life, McCoy turned his focus to the human half; the half that had left Spock sitting almost shell-shocked after his impulsive action to ignite the fuel.

"It may be the last action you'll ever take, Mr. Spock." McCoy's smile was gentle, the words calm, prodding yet without demand. "But it was all you," he finished, voice catching on words brimming with fondness, reverence, and pride.

Spock was at a loss, his back to McCoy. He shook his head, the response simply stated yet tinged with bewilderment and something near disappointment. "Totally illogical. There was no chance."

McCoy's smile, if possible, grew even fonder. It was just the response he had expected….until it became something far more telling. In their last breaths, it wasn't about 'I told you so' - it was about the joy of seeing something rare and precious, the sound of an acknowledgment – no matter how unintended or uncertain - of a deeply hidden part of a whole: Spock's humanity. "That's _exactly_ what I mean," McCoy said with a soft, almost private, gratitude and pride, as death came to greet them.

_I knew you had it in you._

_I'm proud to have known you, my friend: the Vulcan, the human….._

…_.__All__ of you._


End file.
